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Nicholas Hyett

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Gloucester Castle keep in use as part of the county gaol in the 18th century. (A later work said to be based on an 1819 original)

Nicholas Hyett (1709-1777) was a lawyer and justice of the peace in Gloucester, England, and one of the last keepers and constables of the Castle of Gloucester.

Life

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Nicholas Hyett was born in 1709 to Charles Hyett (d. 1738) and younger brother of Benjamin Hyett (1708–62), who was responsible for the Rococo garden at Painswick House.[1]

He followed his elder brother to Pembroke College, Oxford and the Inner Temple, where they became barristers in the same year.[2] Hyett became a lawyer and justice of the peace, serving as recorder for Tewkesbury for 17 years from 1760.[3] When his elder brother died childless in 1762, he inherited the family estate.[4] In 1765 he was granted by letters patent the office of keeper and constable of the Castle of Gloucester by King George III.[5][6] By that time the office was largely honorary as the castle had long since been reduced just to a keep which was used as a gaol. His father Charles had been granted the same office in 1715.[1]

Nicholas Hyett stood as a Tory for the parliamentary constituency of Gloucester unsuccessfully in 1734.[7]

Hyett was probably responsible for the current façade of Hyatt House, a grade II listed building in Westgate Street, Gloucester.[8][9]

Family

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Hyett married a widow, Henrietta Maria Holker (née James), by whom he had a son Benjamin,[10] who was appointed a freeman of Gloucester in 1762.[11]

Death

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Hyett died in 1777.[1] His Will is held by the British National Archives at Kew.[12]

References

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  1. ^ a b c Richards, M.E. (1981). "Two Eighteenth-Century Gloucester Gardens" (PDF). Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. 99: 123–126.
  2. ^ Foster, Joseph. Alumni Oxonienses 1715-1886. p. 725.
  3. ^ Williams, William Retlaw (1898). The Parliamentary History of the County of Gloucester. p. 250.
  4. ^ "VCH Gloucestershire Volume 11: Painswick: Manors and other estates". Retrieved 20 March 2024.
  5. ^ "The Archaeology of Gloucester Castle: an Introduction", Henry Hurst, Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 1984, Vol. 102, 73-128, p. 120.
  6. ^ Rudge, Thomas (1803). The History of the County of Gloucester: Compressed, and Brought Down to the Year 1803. Vol. I. Gloucester: Thomas Rudge. p. 53.
  7. ^ "History of Parliament, Constituencies, 1715-1754:Gloucester". Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  8. ^ Historic England. "HYATT HOUSE (1245237)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  9. ^ Hyett House. Gloucester Civic Trust. Retrieved 5 August 2015.
  10. ^ "VCH Gloucestershire, Volume 10:Moreton Valence: Manors and Estates". Retrieved 25 March 2024.
  11. ^ Ripley, Peter, & John Jurica (Ed.) (1991) A Calendar of the Registers of the Freemen of the City of Gloucester 1641-1838. Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society. p. 136. ISBN 0900197323
  12. ^ Will of Nicholas Hyett of Gloucester, Gloucestershire. National Archives. Retrieved 6 August 2015.
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