Robert Hayman

Robert Hayman (14 August 1575 – November 1629) was a poet, colonist and Proprietary Governor of Bristol's Hope colony in Newfoundland.

His father, Nicholas Hayman, had been mayor and M.P. of both Totnes and Dartmouth. A letter he wrote to Robert Cecil in 1600 reveals that he hoped for a career for his eldest son Robert in some government office, and that towards this end he had educated him at both Oxford University and at Poitiers. According to Anthony Wood Hayman was educated at Exeter College and then "retired to Lincolns-inn, without the honour of a degree, studied for a time the municipal law, but his geny being well known to be poetical, fell into acquaintance with" a literary circle which included Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, John Owen the epigrammatist and others. These encouraged his literary efforts with the result, according to Wood, that Hayman had "the general vogue of a poet". Perhaps because of these distractions Hayman seems not to have achieved any significant public office in England.

Hayman was appointed the Newfoundland colony's first and only governor in 1618 when Bristol's Society of Merchant Venturers received a charter from King James I of England to establish the settlement. Hayman's brother in law, John Barker was the society's master. Hayman lived in the colony for fifteen months before returning to England and visited again over several summers until his tenure as governor ended in 1628. Much of his work was in England raising money for the settlement and encouraging more colonisation efforts.

As Newfoundland's first poet Hayman is remembered for his writings extolling the island and its early English pioneers. He is the author of "Qvodlibets, lately come over from New Britaniola, old New-found-land. Epigrams and other small parcels, both morall and diuine. The first foure bookes being the authors owne: the rest translated out of that excellent epigrammatist, Mr. Iohn Owen, and other rare authors: With two epistles of that excellently wittie doctor, Francis Rablais: translated out of his French at large. All of them composed and done at Harbor-Grace in Britaniola, anciently called Newfound-Land." (1628). "Qvodlibets" ("What you will") was the first book of English poetry written in what would become Canada.

Hayman was married on 21 May 1604 at St Petroc's Church, Exeter, to Grace Spicer, but they appear to have had no children and as Hayman does not mention her directly in his works it seems she died young.

In the fall of 1628 Hayman left for the Amazon dying, a year later, of fever in Guyana. His will, signed and sealed on 17th November 1628 but not proved until 1633(1632 old style), leaves his estate to "my loving Cosin and Nephew Thomas Muchell of Longaston in the Countie of Somersett..." His will also mentions two "policies of insurance" taken out with the Chancellor of London, Arthur Duck. Of the value of £100 each, one related to the safe arrival of Hayman's ship in Guyana and the other was "of one hundred pounds assured by the said Doctor Arthur Ducke on my life".

ee also

*List of Newfoundland and Labrador lieutenant-governors
*Proprietary Governor

External links

* [http://www.heritage.nf.ca/govhouse/governors/p03.html Government House "The Governorship of Newfoundland and Labrador"]
* [http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=336 Biography at the "Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online"]
* [http://www.mun.ca/rels/hrollmann/relsoc/texts/hayman.html The complete text of "Qvodlibets"]