The Hobbs Memorial

Thomas Hobbs was the son of a Winchester gentleman who began his career as a surgeon. He served several monarchs and their families as attending surgeon. He treated Charles II on his deathbed and was Surgeon in Ordinary to James II. In 1693 he made the unusual transition from surgeon to physician thereby becoming Dr.Hobbs and attaining a more genteel status within the medical profession.When he died in 1698 at the age of fifty, Hobbs owned a London town house at Lincoln's Inn Fields as well as his country estate in Hampshire. His widow, Susannah, given the choice of two houses to live in for life choose to live in London. It was anticipated that Hobb's son Thomas would inherit the estate but in 1707 young Hobbs- age seventeen- was accidently drowned on the Continent. By the terms of his father's will the estate passed to Abraham Weekes, the son of Dr. Hobb's sister Elizabeth. (From 'The History of Ashley' by Kate Gilbert)