8 EARLY DAYS 
Caerhayes in Corn\Yall, from whose son Valentine the modern 
Hooker family traces its descent. Post-Reformation Hookers 
tended to Puritanism. In the Laudian persecutions the Rev. 
Thomas Hooker escaped to America, and there founded a 
family which has won its own meed of distinction in Church 
and State. ' lighting Joe Hooker,' for instance, gained his 
by-name in the War of North and South. 
Another Hooker is recorded as fighting under Fairfax 
and Essex in our own Civil War, afterwards settling down at 
Crediton. 
Among the 2000 clergy who were driven from their livings 
after the Act of Uniformity were several Hookers. One is 
mentioned as minister of the Presbyterian chapel at Crediton, 
another at Chumleigh. The chapel registers show that many 
of the name became Nonconformists. Zeal for the Protestant 
cause led some to join in Monmouth's ill-starred rebelhon ; 
those who escaped the scaffold at Exeter ended their hves 
as slaves in Barbados.^ 
The Joseph Hooker already mentioned, seventh in descent 
from John, migrated from Exeter and set up in business at 
Norwich, where his son WilHam Jackson was bom in 1785. 
Lydia Vincent, Joseph Hooker's wife, claims special notice for 
her artistic heritage. George Vincent,^ her cousin, studied under 
' Old Crome ' with Cotman^and J. B. Crome, and during his short 
career, was one of the hghts of the Norwich School. Lydia's 
sister had married WilHam Jackson of Canterbury — indeed 
Jacksons and Vincents intermarried for several generations— 
and their only son was godfather to his cousin WilHam Jackson 
Hooker, to whom he afterwards left the Jackson property. 
1 Based on Devon Worthies, by the late Robert H. Hooker of Weston-super- 
Mare, who erected the beautiful statue of the Judicious Hooker in the Cathedral 
Close at Exeter, 
2 George Vincent (1796-1836 ?), the landscape painter, was born and edu- 
cated in Norwich. A pupil of John Crome, he exhibited, chiefly Norfolk views, 
at Norwich between 1811 and 1831, and in London 1814-31, where he lived 
from 1818. His etchings date between 1821 and 1827. 
3 John Sell Cotman (1782-1842) was a landscape and portrait painter, 
chiefly in water-colours. He studied in London in 1798 and exhibited there 
1 800-6 and again 1825-39. He was Drawing Master in Norwich 1807-34, 
and in King's Coll., London, 1834-42 ; etched plates of Norfolk buildings and 
antiquities 1811-39, and published etchings of 'Architectural Antiquities of 
Normandy ' made in 1817-20 (see vol. ii. p. 197). 
