page_title: John Hatsell
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: John Hatsell / Later life
caption_attribution_description: English: Watercolour of Marden Park, Surrey, England.
context_page_description: John Hatsell was an English civil servant, clerk of the House of Commons, and an authority on parliamentary procedure.
context_section_description: On 11 July 1797 Hatsell retired, with the thanks of the House. He kept his title, however, and his official house, while John Ley (1733–1814) as deputy carried out the normal business of the post. He also divided with Ley the large income accruing to the clerks from the passage of private bills through Parliament.
  Henry Addington, Speaker of the House of Commons from 1789 to 1801, took advice from both men on procedural matters. His nomination de facto was in the control of the ministry, as was generally the case during the 18th century; Hatsell, however, is thought by John Ehrman to have advised William Pitt, the Prime Minister, that the election had better appear to arise from the Members, at a time when expectations of the Speaker's independence were rising. Addington was in fact less conservative on procedural points: while Hatsell opposed innovation as such, he allowed some latitude.
  A correspondence between Hatsell and Anne Grant began in 1805. He fell out with Ley, over clerical appointments, from around 1811. Ley died in 1814, and was replaced by Jeremiah Dyson the younger as deputy to Hatsell. Background to the quarrel was resistance to the Ley family influence, in which Charles Abbot—Speaker from 1802 to 1817—sided with Hatsell. In the end, however, Hatsell's own replacement was to be John Henry Ley. a nephew of John Ley.
  Hatsell died at Marden Park, near Godstone, Surrey, on 15 October 1820; he resided there, but the property was let from Sir William Clayton, 4th Baronet. He was buried in the Temple Church.
caption: Marden Park, where John Hatsell lived at the end of his life, 1822 watercolour
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