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John Alexander Hankey (1804-1881)
John Alexander Hankey c.1860 Mrs John Alexander Hankey nee Blake c.1860
John Alexander Hankey 1855
Eldest surviving son of John Peter Hankey of Finchley, John Alexander Hankey was born on 30 May 1804 and baptised on 28 Jun at St Dunstan in the East (Alexander being his mother’s maiden name). Educated at Edinburgh University.
He was married on 30 Aug 1825 to Ellen Blake, daughter of William Blake of Danesbury, Welwyn, by whom he had two sons and seven daughters. In 1838 he commissioned a tomb at the recently opened Kensal Green Cemetery, by the distinguished architect George Basevi.
With his first cousin Thomson Hankey, junior, he was a partner of Thomson Hankey & Co, West India merchants, and with him contested Boston in the Parliamentary election of 1852.
He was a director of the Colonial Bank 1836-1847; a director of the East and West India Dock Company in 1859; Governor of the London Assurance Corporation 1861-64; Commissioner for Lieutenancy for London; JP for Sussex; High Sheriff for Sussex 1868. A botanist (F.L.S. 1835), he discovered Allium ambiguum, 1837, and Polygonum dumetorum.
He was at 13 Devonshire Street in 1827 and 1828.
By 1832 he lived at 36 Lower Brook Street, Grosvenor Square, and from 1846-52 was at The Cedars, Roehampton Lane (a house owned by the Thomson family) and later at 38 Portland Place.
He purchased an estate at Balcombe, near Cuckfield in Sussex, where in 1856 he built Balcombe Place in the Jacobean style, as a grander house than the old farmhouse provided with the estate. He owned 2,462 acres in Sussex and 1,388 acres in Rutland.
He died on 29 May 1881 at Dijon and his widow on 18 Apr 1891.
Balcombe Place, Cuckfield
John Alexander Hankeys sons were:
Blake Alexander Hankey (1828-1889)
Born on 6 Apr 1828. Partner of Thomson Hankey & Co. At Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. He took over the Balcombe estate from his father, and by 1883 was also the owner of Balcombe House, a handsome rectory, which was tenanted. He was a JP for Sussex. He also lived at Essendine, Stamford, and was High Sheriff for Rutland in 1889. He died unmarried n 10 Mar 1889 and was buried at Kensal Green.
Rodolph Alexander Hankey (1837-1906)
Rodolph Alexander Hankey
© NPG
Born on 12 Jan 1837 at Lower Brook Street and baptised on 11 Mar at St George, Hanover Square. At Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge. Married in 1872 to Clara von Collani (1847-1933), daughter of Emil von Collani of Breslau, Silesia; no surviving children.
Partner of Thomson Hankey & Co; director of the Colonial Bank 1849-1856; Deputy Lieutenant for Middlesex; High Sheriff for Rutland 1903. Of 54 Warwick Square (1906). He died on 18 Aug 1906 at Axenstein, Switzerland, leaving an estate of £95,000.