A younger son of John Hanmer (alias Davie, died April 1628), and Siblye Downe his wife, he was born at Barnstaple in Devon, and baptised there on 3 October 1606.
He was ordained on 23 November 1632 by Theophilus Field; instituted to the living of Instow, Devon, the same year, he later held the vicarage of Bishops Tawton, from 1652.
[2] Hanmer was ejected from both vicarage and lectureship on the passing of the Act of Uniformity 1662; with Oliver Peard, he founded the first nonconformist congregation in Barnstaple, which before the building of a meeting-house in 1672, near the castle, met in a private malthouse or warehouse.
[1] He supported the North American missionary John Eliot: correspondence survives, and they became close friends.
[4] Hanmer undertook fundraising work for Eliot, and channeled money directly to him, avoided the Massachusetts Corporation (New England Company).