# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hungerford, Edward (1632-1711)

​HUNGERFORD, Sir EDWARD (1632–1711), founder of Hungerford Market, son and heir of Anthony Hungerford the royalist (d. 1657) [q.v.], was born on 20 Oct. 1632, and was baptised at Black Bourton, Oxfordshire (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. vi. 454, by Canon Jackson). He was made a knight of the Bath at Charles II's coronation on 23 April 1661, and was elected M.P. for Chippenham in 1660, 1661, 1678, 1679, and 1681, for New Shoreham in 1685, 1688, and 1690, and for Steyning in 1695, 1698, 1700, and 1702. In January 1679-80 he presented a petition for the summoning of a parliament (Luttrell, Brief Relation, i. 32), and his avowed opposition to the court led to his removal from 'the lieutenancy' of his county in May 1681 (ib. p. 89) . In April 1669 his town residence, Hungerford House, by Charing Cross, London, was destroyed by fire (Peyps, Diary, iv. 161), and he settled in 1681 in Spring Gardens. He obtained some reputation as a patron of archery, and was lieutenant-colonel of the regiment of archers in 1661, and colonel in 1682. But Sir Edward was best known for his reckless extravagance. He is said to have disposed of thirty manors in all. By way of restoring his waning fortunes, he obtained permission in 1679 to hold a market on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays on the site of the demolished Hungerford House and grounds. In 1682 a market-house was erected there, apparently from Sir Christopher Wren's designs. A bust of Sir Edward was placed on the north front, with an inscription stating that the market had been built at his expense with the king's sanction (see drawing in Gent. Mag. 1832, pt. ii. p. 113). In 1685 Sir Stephen Fox and Sir Christopher Wren purchased the market and received the tolls. The market-house was rebuilt in 1833, and was removed in 1860, when Charing Cross railway station was built on the site (Cunningham, Handbook to London, ed. Wheatley, ii. 248-9). Hungerford sold the manor and castle of Farleigh in 1686 to Henry Baynton of Spye Park for 56,000l. (Luttrell, i. 395), but about 1700 it was purchased by Joseph Houlton of Trowbridge, in whose descendants' possession it remained till July 1891, when it was bought by Lord Donington. In his old age Hungerford is stated to have become a poor knight of Windsor. He died in 1711 ​and was buried in the church of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields.
Hungerford married thrice. By his first wife, Jane, daughter of Sir John Hele of Devonshire, who died on 18 May 1664, and was buried at Farleigh, he had an only son, Edward, who married in 1680, at the age of nineteen, Lady Alathea Compton, and died in September 1681. By his second wife, Jane Culme (died in 1674), and by his third wife, Jane Digby, perhaps the Lady Hungerford who died on 23 Nov. 1692 (Luttrell, ii. 623), he also seems to have left issue.
A daughter of the first marriage, Rachel, married, in March 1684, Clotworthy Skeffington, second viscount Massereene, died on 2 Feb. 1731-2, and left to her eldest son portraits of her father, of her granduncle (another Sir Edward Hungerford), and of other relations. In her will she mentions a brother and a sister as still living (Lodge, Irish Peerage, ed. Archdall, ii. 384-5 n.) With the death of Sir Edward, the history of the Farleigh family of Hungerford practically closes.
S. L.