Thomas Hooker

Thomas Hooker was an important figure in the history of colonial America, and not just in Hartford, Connecticut, the city with which he is most closely connected. It is therefore surprising that a school building in a village close to where I live should bear a plaque that declares that the “Reputed Father of American Democracy” was once a pupil there.

Market Bosworth, in Leicestershire, gave its name to the battle in which King Richard III lost his life in 1485, but it was also the seat of the Dixie Family. The Grammar School was founded in 1601 under the will of Sir Wolstan Dixie, and is still running to this day.

Thomas Hooker as a Puritan Clergyman

Thomas Hooker was born in 1586 at Markfield, some ten miles from Market Bosworth.  He was the son of a farmer and would have been one of the first pupils of the new Dixie school, from where he proceeded to Cambridge, taking a BA degree in 1608. He was granted a fellowship, endowed by the Dixie family, and remained at Emmanuel College until 1618.

Emmanuel was a distinctly Puritan college, and Thomas Hooker became a clergyman with a very Puritan outlook, meaning that he believed more in personal spiritual growth than adherence to Church dogma.

Hooker became rector of St George’s, Esher, Surrey. In 1621 he married Susannah Garbrand and they soon had two daughters, both of whom were eventually to become the wives of clergymen in America.

As a puritan, Thomas Hooker objected to the marriage of Prince Charles (later to become King Charles I) to a Catholic Spanish princess, and this marked him out as a potential troublemaker. This reputation grew when he moved to Chelmsford in Essex and he preached many sermons in favour of the nonconformist cause, emphasising individual salvation and castigating the established Church for its oppression and its laxity in spiritual matters. His sermons appealed to a wide swathe of the population, being direct and lively and free of classical allusions. A number of them were published.

He opened a school in Essex, where his family grew further with two more children being born who survived to adulthood. However, his puritan, anti-establishment views were becoming known in high places, and he eventually fell foul of the conformist Bishop of London, William Laud. In 1630 he was summoned to the Bishop’s court but chose to go into hiding, and then exile, rather than fight a case that he knew he could not win.

Thomas Hooker’s Escape to America

In June 1631 Thomas Hooker escaped to the Netherlands, returning only in 1633 to collect his family and take ship for Boston, which they reached on 4th September.

Hooker became the pastor of a church at Newtown (which is now Cambridge, MA), where he found a number of former friends from Essex who had preceded him to the colony. He stayed at Newtown until May 1636, when the decision was made to move further south and west, mainly because of the need to find better grazing land.

The place chosen for the new settlement was known by the natives as Suckiaug, on the banks of the Connecticut River, but was renamed Hartford after the English town of Hertford.

Can Thomas Hooker’s Reputation be Justified?

Thomas Hooker’s reputation as the “Father of American Democracy” comes from his activity during the formation of a colonial confederation of Connecticut towns in 1638. He preached a sermon in which he reminded the citizens that the authority of the leaders of the people depended on the consent of the people to be governed by those leaders. He merely extended to civil society the principle that pertained to church governance within the nonconformist tradition.

The resulting document became known as the “Fundamental Orders” (adopted in January 1639), which set out the conditions under which the Connecticut colony would be run as an entity distinct from that of Massachusetts Bay. It was what might be termed a “proto-Constitution”, in that it contained elements that were to be repeated in later constitutions, and eventually found their way into the Constitution of the United States.

In particular, the Fundamental Orders established the principle of magistrates being elected by secret ballot. It stressed the rights of the individual and set limits on the power of government. The Connecticut colony differed from Massachusetts in that non-members of the church were eligible to stand for office, thus enshrining the principle of the separation of church and state.

The claim that this was the world’s first written constitution was accepted for many years, although modern historians dispute this. It has however led to Connecticut becoming known as the “Constitution State”. Thomas Hooker’s role in this development would seem to have been elevated beyond its rightful place, and to call him the “Father of American Democracy” is somewhat exaggerated. All he did, in reality, was to point out how an Independent church managed its affairs, with the implication that a civic community could do the same.

Thomas Hooker’s role was not in government but in the church. He continued to lead his church in Hartford for the rest of his life, which ended on 7th July 1647. The link between the wall of a school in a Leicestershire market town and the American Constitution is a fascinating one, although the word “reputed” on Thomas Hooker’s blue plaque should not be ignored.

© John Welford