Hare, Robert (1531 -1611)

Robert Hare, of Bruisyard in Suffolk and of London, was the second son of Sir Nicholas Hare, Master of the Rolls, and Catharine, daughter and coheir of Sir John Bassingbourne, of Woodhall, Hatfield in Hertfordshire. Robert Hare matriculated as a Fellow Commoner of Gonville Hall, Cambridge in November 1545, but took no degree, and was admitted a student of the Inner Temple 2 February 1548. On 29 March 1558, he was in the service of William Paulet, Marquess of Worcester, Lord High Treasurer, apparently in connection with that office. On 14 June 1560 he was admitted a Clerk of the Pells on the nomination of the Marquis, and in 1563 he was Member of Parliament for Dunwich in Suffolk. He vacated the clerkship in or about 1571. In 1578, he appears in a list of papists. He spent the greater part of his life in collecting and arranging the numerous documents which elucidate the history, rights and privileges of the University and Town of Cambridge. The result was a series of valuable volumes now preserved in the University Archives. He also added £600 to Dr Mowse's `Causey Fund', a benefaction left in trust for improving roads in the vicinity of Cambridge. He never married and his estates passed to his uncle John, grandfather of Hugh Hare, 1st Baron Coleraine. This binding was discovered by Francis Jenkinson in a shop in Botolph Lane and presented by him to the library in 1913.