Sir Richard Bulkeley, 1st Baronet

Sir Richard Bulkeley, 1st Baronet (7 September 1634 – 17 March 1685)^[1] was an Irish politician and baronet.

Born at Tallaght, he was the oldest son of William Bulkeley, oldest son of Lancelot Bulkeley, Archbishop of Dublin, and his first wife Elizabeth Mainwaring, daughter of Henry Mainwaring, Archdeacon of Ossory.^[2] Bulkeley was High Sheriff of Wicklow in 1660 and sat in the Irish House of Commons for Baltinglass between 1665 and 1666.^[2] On 9 December 1672, he was created a baronet, of Old Bawn, in the County of Dublin, and of Dunlaven, in the County of Wicklow.^[3]

In 1659, he married firstly Catherine Bysse, daughter of John Bysse, Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, and had by her two sons.^[3] She died in 1664,^[4] and on 8 February 1684, Bulkeley married secondly Dorothy Whitfield, daughter of Henry Whitfield at the Church of St Nicholas Church Without, Dublin.^[2] He died only a year later, and was succeeded in the baronetcy by his older son Richard.^[1] His widow two years after his death remarried as his third wife William Worth, Baron of the Court of Exchequer (Ireland); she died in 1705.^[5] Rather strangely, at least by modern standards, Worth after Dorothy's death remarried her stepson's widow, Lucy Downing, who was the daughter of the eminent politician and financier Sir George Downing, 1st Baronet and his wife Frances Howard.^[6]

References

1. "Leigh Rayment - Baronetage". Retrieved 3 June 2009.
2. "ThePeerage - Sir Richard Bulkeley, 1st Bt". Retrieved 3 June 2009.
3. Burke, John (1841). John Bernhard Burke, ed. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies of England, Ireland and Scotland (2nd ed.). London: Scott, Webster, and Geary. p. 601.
4. Lodge, John (1789). Mervyn Archdall, ed. The Peerage of Ireland or A Genealogical History of the Present Nobility of that Kingdom. vol. V. Dublin: James Moore. pp. 22–23.
5. Ball, F. Elrington The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921 London John Murray 1926 Vol. 1 p. 359
6. Ball p.359