John Mortimer

John Mortimer (c. 1656 – 1736) was an English merchant, and writer on agriculture, known for The whole Art of Husbandry, in the way of Managing and Improving of Land published in London in 1707. Biography John was born in 1656, the only son and heir of Mark Mortimer, grocer of London, by his wife Abigail Walmesley of Blackmore in Essex, who married 3rd October 1651 in the parish of St Anne and St Agnes, London. His father was born into a yeoman family of Bow, Devon, and had a brother Peter who also entered into a commercial profession. John Mortimer received a commercial education, and became a prosperous merchant on Tower Hill. In November 1693, at the age of about 43, he bought the estate of Topping Hall, Hatfield Peverel, Essex, which he improved; a number of cedar trees planted by him were still in there in the 19th century. Mortimer became Fellow of the Royal Society in December 1705. Mortimer was married three times. His first wife, Dorothy, born at Hursley, near Winchester, on 1 August 1660, was the ninth child of Richard Cromwell, and it is supposed that the ex-protector's return to England in 1680 was prompted by a desire to be present at the wedding. She died in childbirth (14 May 1681) within a year of the marriage. He married, secondly, Sarah, daughter of Sir John Tippets, knight, surveyor of the navy, by whom he had a son and a daughter. Thirdly, Mortimer married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Sanders of Derbyshire, by whom he had four sons and two daughters. The second son was Cromwell Mortimer.