Henry Hoare

For other people named Henry Hoare, see Henry Hoare (disambiguation).

Henry Hoare II (1705–1785), known as Henry the Magnificent, was an English banker and garden owner-designer.

Henry Hoare portrayed by his friend the painter William Hoare about 1750–1760

Memorial in St Peter's Church, Stourton

Family

Henry's grandfather, Richard Hoare, was a goldsmith-banker and Lord Mayor of London. His father, Henry Hoare I, bought the ancestral estate of the Stourtons and built a Palladian villa designed by Colen Campbell.^[1] When his father died, Henry Hoare II was 20 years old. He was educated at Westminster School.^[2]

Career

Henry dominated the Hoare family through his wealth and personal charisma.^[2] He was a partner for nearly 60 years in Hoare's Bank. His nickname, "Henry The Magnificent", derived in part from his influence as a great patron of the arts, but more particularly because he laid out the gardens at Stourhead in Wiltshire, an estate bought by his father.^[3] In the thirty years after his mother died in 1741, he worked on the gardens at Stourhead, planning and planting what became a "masterpiece" of European garden design. In the 'school' of Poussin, it was said to be "more beautiful than any landscape put on canvas".^[1] The gardens were admired as a showplace^[4] and Capability Brown, the renowned landscape gardener, was well known to Henry.^[5] In 1734 he was elected Member of Parliament for Salisbury.^[6]

He died in 1785 leaving Stourhead to the son of his daughter Ann (1734–1759), Richard Colt Hoare.^[7] His younger daughter, Susanna, became Countess of Ailesbury.^[8]