Agar, James

Submitted by edpope on

proposed member of Society for Constitutional Information 30.11.1792 by Christopher Hull, seconded by John Balmanno, rejected (one of a very few) Nat Arch TS11/962 / signed Declaration of Friends to the Liberty of the Press 1792/3 / steward at general meeting of London Corresponding Society 20.1.1794 (Thale p105) / witness in treason trials 1794 address Hare Court, Temple / steward of Friends of Freedom 1795, 1796 / on the outbreak of open rebellion in Ireland he was arrested 31.5.1798 at the Inner Temple on suspicion of high treason (along with Valentine Lawless, Richard Curran, Traynor and Stewart) and held for six weeks in Tower of London / married 5.10.1805 at St Marylebone Sarah Fletcher, widow of Welbeck St, Cavendish Square / died 25.1.1838 at Holly Terrace, Highgate in his 81st year and buried St Pancras 2.2.1838

adm. Trinity College Dublin 5.6.1775 age 16, adm. Lincolns Inn 29.4.1779 only son of James Agar deceased of Cork, adm. St Mary Hall Oxford 19.5.84 age 23, by 1793 he was counsel for Marshalsea and Palace courts

William Gaysper Agar son of James & Ann Agar was born 10.11.1788 bapt 4.12 at St James Clerkenwell (another child John Charles baptised there in 1791, probably didn't survive). As William Gapper Agar he became Commander in Royal Navy 1829 (ADM9/8/2709 Nat Arch) and his will was proved 3.2.1834 in which he left most to his father James Agar and mentioned his aunt Ann Hartley (married to Humphrey Hartley attorney of Dublin), his cousin Mrs Horsley, and Charles Dignum (Mrs Horsley's father)

Dignum married a daughter of barrister Charles Rennett who died in 1787 and had known Agar; it seems that another daughter of his, Elizabeth Ann, was the unmarried mother of William Gapper Agar but was dead by 1793, and a son Charles Rennett died in 1811, leaving his estate between a daughter, his son Charles and his nephew William Gapper Agar, and making Charles Dignum (his brother-n-law) and James Agar executors. The youngest Charles Rennett ran away with Mrs Horsley's child in 1817 (see London Lives or Old Bailey online and newspapers - search on Charles Rennett in the year 1817 - for this extensive drama and Rennett's accusations of Agar)

James Agar, as a bachelor, married 5.10.1805 at St Marylebone Sarah Fletcher (nee Burgess) whose first husband William Fletcher was also a barrister and is probably the Fletcher who appears in Godwin's diary on 9.3.1794 at Tooke's, for on 28.3.1794 he was proposed as a member of the Society for Constitutional Information by Bonney and seconded by Tooke (Agar was proposed in 1792 by Christopher Hull but was one of the very few ever to be rejected). Fletcher died in 1802 and his widow by then Sarah Agar died in 1811 and in her will speaks pointedly of her respect for her first husband, mentioning Agar only in so far as she had to refer to the marriage settlement, making it clear they were quickly estranged. One of the witnesses to her marriage with Agar in 1805 was Callan (George Agar 1st Baron Callan)

Callan's grandfather was James Agar died 1733 who had two sons Henry died 1746 and James killed in a duel by Henry Speed 1769. Two of Henry's sons became peers (Viscount Clifden and Earl of Normanton); Callan was a son of James born in 1754 and had a brother Charles born in 1755. Callan never married but had sixteen illegitimate children by two mothers all listed in his will proved 27.10.1815. He left £2000 to each of them and the same amount each to James Agar and Mrs Ann Hartley, not stating the relationship. When James Agar died his will proved 14.2.1838 left everything to his friend William Agar, probably the William Agar, one of Callan's sixteen children in his will

Agar was born about 1760 so he and his sister Ann (Mrs Hartley) could have been illegitimate children of James Agar killed in a duel 1769, whose wife Rebecca lived till 1789. Callan also had an older brother called James who died aged about 20, and James and Ann seem more likely to have been his illegitimate children. Agar's rejection by the SCI may have propelled him into the LCS; he was a steward of their general meeting on 20.1.1794, and a member of the Friends of Freedom in 1795