Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hotham, Durant

1397564Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 27 — Hotham, Durant1891Gordon Goodwin

HOTHAM, DURANT (1617?–1691), biographer, was fifth son by his second marriage of Sir John Hotham [q. v.], of Scorborough, Yorkshire (Foster, Pedigrees of Yorkshire, vol. ii.) He was admitted to Christ's College, Cambridge, 7 May 1632, aged 15. He became involved in his father's disgrace, his letters and papers were seized (June 1643), and he was summoned to attend parliament. After being examined, he was soon discharged, and his property restored to him, though he received strict injunctions not to join his father (Commons' Journals, iii. 153, 158). For many years he lived at Lockington in Yorkshire, engaged in scientific pursuits. As justice of the peace he officiated at the marriage of his brother Charles at Wigan on 15 Sept. 1656. He died in the parish of St. James, Westminster, in 1691, and was buried in the church (letters of administration, P. C. C., granted on 2 Oct. 1691). On 23 Aug. 1645 he married Frances (1625–1693), daughter of Richard Remington of Lund, Yorkshire, and by her had seven sons and four daughters, all of whom died young. He wrote a ‘Life of Jacob Boehme,’ published in two different editions in 1654, interesting for its literary style. His translation of his brother Charles's ‘Ad Philosophiam Teutonicam Manuductio’ was issued in 1650 as ‘englished by D. F.’ (i.e. Durant Frater).

[Worthington's Diary (Chetham Soc.), pt. iii. pp. 291–3; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1652–3, p. 405; information kindly supplied by C. W. Sutton, esq., of Manchester; Dalton's Wrays of Glenworth, ii. 60.]

G. G.