BARKER, Richard (c.1554-1636), of Norton, Salop and Abbey Foregate, Shrewsbury, Salop.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1554, yr. s. of James Barker of Haughmond Abbey by his 1st w. Dorothy, da. of Richard Clive of Styche. educ. Shrewsbury 1562; Barnard’s Inn; G. Inn 1569, called 1576. m. 1583, Dorothy, da. and coh. of William Poyner of Abbey Foregate, 2s. 3da.

Offices Held

Reader, Barnard’s Inn 1583-4; Lent reader, G. Inn 1594, bencher 1595, jt. treasurer 1595-6; member, council in the marches of Wales 1601; recorder, Shrewsbury 1603; justice of Anglesea circuit 1602-10, chief justice 1610-15; j.p.q. Salop from 1601.2

Biography

Barker was a younger son who studied law and was appointed tutor by Sir Nicholas Bacon to his sons Anthony Bacon and Francis Bacon during their period at Gray’s Inn. He was recommended by Lord Burghley in 1579 as ‘an honest and toward student fit to be an ancient of the Inn’, and admitted to the readers’ table and the pension house, without a vote, in 1593.3

In 1585 the Shrewsbury council house and chapel were let to Barker, who agreed to keep them in repair in return for an allowance during ‘such time as the Queen’s council in the marches of Wales shall abide in the said house’. There was a contest on both occasions that Barker was returned to Parliament for Shrewsbury. In 1584 he came second on the poll. The references in the journals to ‘Mr. Barker’ on Commons committees in this Parliament are probably to Edward Barker. Richard Barker died in December 1636 and was buried at Wroxeter 9 Dec.4

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
  • 2. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 3), vi. misc. 18; (ser. 4), xii. 193; Vis. Salop. (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 26-7; Williams, Welsh Judges , 91; Cardiff Lib. mss 4, f. 609; C142/154/8.
  • 3. G Inn Pens. Bk. i. 27, 37, 106, 108, 112, 205.
  • 4. Trans. Salop Arch. Soc. (ser. 1), iii; (ser. 4), xii. 193; Wroxeter Par. Reg. (Salop Par. Reg. Soc. Lichfield Diocese), x. 16.