Henry Hoare II (1705–1785), known as Henry the Magnificent, was an English banker and garden owner-designer.
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.
When his father died, Henry Hoare II was 20 years old. He was educated at Westminster School.
[Hutchings, V. p 49]
Career
Henry dominated the Hoare family through his wealth and personal charisma.
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.
[Hutchings, V. p 51] 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
Nicolas Poussin, it was said to be "more beautiful than any landscape put on canvas".
[
The gardens were admired as a showplace][Hutchings, V. p 55] and Capability Brown, the renowned landscape gardener, was well known to Henry.[Hutchings, V. p 70] In 1734 he was elected Member of Parliament for Salisbury.[Hutchings, V. p 50]
He died in 1785 leaving Stourhead to the son of his daughter Ann (1734–1759), Richard Colt Hoare.[Hutchings, V. p 85] His younger daughter, Susanna, became Countess of Ailesbury.
Further reading
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Hoare, Henry Peregrine Rennie, Hoare's Bank: A Record 1672-1955, 1932, new edition 1955
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Hutchings, Victoria, Messrs Hoare, Bankers: A History of the Hoare Banking Dynasty, 2005
