HASELHURST, Ralph, of Hythe, Kent.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1559

Family and Education

Offices Held

Bailiff, Hythe c.1555-8, jurat by 1561; brodhull rep. 1555, 1557, 1558, 1561.

Biography

Haselhurst’s ancestry is unknown; he may have been a relative of the Anne Haselhurst who in 1545 married Henry Crispe at Birchington, Kent. The earliest reference found to him in the Cinque Ports records is in 1555, when as one of the ‘commoners’ of Hythe he attended a Ports brodhull. He represented his town again at the three later annual brodhulls, each time being described as bailiff of Hythe. In May 1557 he went up to London as one of the two ‘solicitors’ from the borough to defend a case concerning a writ of quo warranto.

Apart from the list of his local offices, almost nothing is known of him. Some time during Mary’s reign he and his wife—her name is not given—were presented by a Hythe jury before the ecclesiastical courts for visiting prisoners charged with heresy. He was still a jurat in 1567, but no later references to him have been found.

The John Haselhurst who became common serjeant of Hythe later in Elizabeth’s reign was possibly his son.

Cinque Ports white bk. ff. 251v-255, 258; Arch. Cant. xii. 412, 417; xxxi. 106; HMC 4th Rep. 430; Hythe assembly bk. 1580-91, f. 15.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes