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Augustus Robert Hankey (1768-1830)
Augustus was born on 29 Aug 1768, the only son of Robert Hankey and Anne nee Penton. He may have been the Hankey who was a pupil at Eton from 1776-80; he was at Charterhouse School Jan 1781-Apr 1786. A partner of Hankey & Co by 1794, he became senior partner on his father’s death in 1815. He lived on the premises in Fenchurch Street.
Augustus also had a farm of about 290 acres at Basingstoke and house called Down Grange. This spacious Georgian house was built in about 1818 of stuccoed brick, with numerous bow sash windows. He lived there with Cassandra Sympson1, a widow to whom he left a life interest in the property. It was then occupied by his nephew Augustus Robert Hankey Hirst. It subsequently suffered many years of neglect, and is now an eating house with a large sports complex in the grounds, on the outskirts of the present town.
Down Grange, Basingstoke 2010
Ten days after Augustus Hankey’s death, William Alers Hankey wrote that ‘the farm has absorbed too much, vastly more than he intended, so that he has felt himself more limited than he wished, in his personal property; & therefore as Annuities etc require actual funds, he has kept down legacies. His Books & plate etc are of a very large, though unproductive value. These (at the two places) he estimated, himself, at £6000, & his farming stock at £4000 , a pretty little fortune itself, had it been better placed.’
In the Autumn of 1830, after the death of Augustus in January of that year, the Swing Riots were in full flow in the south of England, with the threshing machines being the declared source of the rioters’ grievance, i.e taking their work away. Some rioters visited Down Grange and demanded money. Three of the rioters were arrested and sent for trial and probable deportation to Australia or Tasmania. They were acquitted. In the reports of the trial, Mrs Sympson is referred to as Mrs Hankey.
Memorial in Basingstoke parish church
Augustus Hankey was the first President of the London Chess Club organized on 6 April 1807, the committee numbering among its members Sir Astley Cooper, the celebrated surgeon, Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid, and others of almost equal eminence. The meetings took place at Tom’s Coffee-House, in Cornhill.
Augustus was also a Freemason, becoming a member of the Somerset House Lodge No. 2 on 26 Nov 1798.
Augustus enjoyed the closest friendship with his cousin and partner William Alers Hankey. Augustus and his partners owned the Arcadia estate and other lands in Jamaica. His will gave his executor William Alers Hankey the option (which he exercised) of buying a moiety of those Jamaican interests for £5,000, and his one-fourth interest in the Fenchurch Street properties for £1,500.
Augustus never married. Having made his will on 12 Sep 1829, he died on 26 Jan 1830 and was buried on 2 Feb at St Dionis Backchurch.
Cassandra Sympson was born as Cassandra Palermo in about 1777. On 31 Aug 1793, at the age of 16, she married Alexander Sympson at St Marylebone. Her husband had been born at Clarendon, Jamaica, where he was baptized on 30 Nov 1764. In about 1796 he was committed to the Fleet Prison, presumably for debt, and died there of liver disease on 5 Apr 1798, aged 33. Cassandra had known Augustus Hankey from 1802, and lived with him at Down Grange after he bought the property in about 1818. Augustus Hankey died in 1830 leaving a life interest in Down Grange to Cassandra Sympson. Cassandra was married to Richard Terry, of the nearby parish of Dummer, on 3 Mar 1832 at St Pancras, Old Church, after which she continued to live at Basingstoke. She died at Down Grange on 12 Sep 1853, aged 76, and was buried at Eastrop.