HARE, Jabez 1796-1851

1796 - 1851

Jabez Hare was baptised at Stoke Green Baptist church, Ipswich on 6 July 1796, son of Jonathan Hare, a hurdle and wire fence manufacturer on the Common Quay, and his wife Elizabeth. Jabez married at St Clement's church, Ipswich on 10 March 1818, Elizabeth Leman Matthews (1796-1873), only daughter of Sarah and Thomas Matthews (died 1802), a surgeon of Ipswich and Debenham. It was announced in May 1818 that Jabez, who had just come of age, was made a partner at their new hurdle and fence shop in the Butter Market, Ipswich. In 1824 when a Mechanics' Institute was formed in Ipswich, which by the end of the first year had attracted over 200 members causing them to seek larger premises, when founder member Jabez, provided rooms over his shop at £20 per annum, which also included the services of Hare as librarian. The members included printer/booksellers Raw, Piper and Cowell; engineers Ransome and Hurwood, artists such as Robert Burcham Clamp, John Robert Flick and Frederick Brett Russel, with Jabez finding an interest in all three recreations. In May 1830, the 'Suffolk Chronicle' announced a 'Notice to Creditors' who received 3s. (15p) in the £ dividend but it was not until 19 June 1837 that he 'assigned all his personal estate' to trustees when the whole of his stock in trade was sold by auction. In 1832, he was secretary of the Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists when he was tutored by Henry Davy. In 1838 he moved from St Helen's Street to Key Street, Ipswich taking over a bathing establishment and as a stopgap took an agency for the Argus Life Office. The following year he made a claim against the Dock Commission, when they were repairing the Ipswich docks, for compensation for the loss of his water. The earliest wood engraving by Jabez Hare is a commemorative souvenir marking the launch of the steamer ‘Orion’ in October 1840, which had been built at Ipswich. In 1841 he left Ipswich for London when he had a sale of some of his effects on 6 October 1841. From 1842 onwards he produced many engravings of agricultural implements for Ransomes of Ipswich catalogues and his advertisement in 'The Annual Register' 1843 lists over twenty-one clients and he was the engraver for the new Pitman's or Taylor's shorthand types. As an artist and technical draughtsman he had connections with those in the printing trades but how he became a wood-engraver is unclear although, as a member of the Ipswich Society of Professional & Amateur Artists, he came into contact with other local artists such as Samuel Read and Charles Keene and engravers Josiah Wood Whymper and family, sons of Ipswich brewer Nathaniel Whimper. In the census of 1841, he is described as 'draughtsman' and his three daughters, Sarah 16, Rebecca 15 and Martina 13 as ‘engravers in wood', it seems that he trained his daughters in his new profession before his 1841 move to 10 Nelson Square, Blackfriars Road, London, where Hare was also involved as a printer and produced the 'Engineers Sheet Almanac' in 1846. Jabez Hare died at the home of his friend Samuel Flick at Bank House, Saxmundham, Suffolk on 30 September 1851, aged 55, and buried in St Matthew's churchyard, Ipswich. His widow Elizabeth, died at her home at 7 Grosvenor Villas, St Bartholomew Road, Tufnell Park, London on 20 November 1873, aged 76. His namesake son Jabez Hare and other children died before reaching adulthood including John Robert on 17 January 1845 and three daughters Elizabeth I & II and Mary Ann all predeceased their father. His son, Thomas Matthew Hare, carried on the business then at 31 Essex Street, Strand.

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Works by This Artist