Background
The Rigby family took Mistley Hall in Essex as the site of their manor, but was descended from the Rigby of Burgh family.
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Richard Rigby
Edit ProfileEducation
Corpus Christi College.
Career
He served as Chief Secretary for Ireland and Paymaster of the Forces. Rigby accumulated a fortune serving the Crown and politician wheeler-dealers in the dynamic 18th century parliament, and this money eventually ended up endowing the Pitt Rivers Museum. He was also part-owner of a plantation in Antigua and a slave trader.
Edward and Ann had a London town house in the parish of Street Andrews High Holborn.
Rigby was educated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and the Middle Temple. In December 1755 he became a junior minister as one of the Lords of Trade and in 1757, he retained a seat in the Irish House of Commons for Old Leighlin, which he held until 1761.
When Bedford was appointed Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland in 1758, in a time of relative peace, Rigby accompanied him as Secretary. The following year he was appointed Master of the Rolls in Ireland.
The office was then a sinecure and Rigby is said never to have sat as a judge.
In 1762 Rigby was seriously considered for promotion to Secretary at War, but he preferred to remain in lucrative sinecures rather than to accept more substantive office, and instead was made in 1765 joint Vice Treasurer of Ireland. In 1768, Rigby was transferred to the perhaps the most lucrative of all government posts, Paymaster of the Forces, which he held for the next 16 years. He took a prominent part in opposing John Wilkes, and later led objections to a public funeral for Pitt the Elder.
When he died in 1788, he was said to have left "nearly half a million of public money".
Rigby spent much of his fortune reinvesting in the family seats of Mistley and Manningtree, employing the top architects and landscape artists of the day to build a port and a spa. The latter endeavour failed, but the ruins of Mistley Towers survive as a tourist destination.
Achievements
Membership
11th Parliament of Great Britain. 9th Parliament of Great Britain. 10th Parliament of Great Britain.
12th Parliament of Great Britain.
13th Parliament of Great Britain. 14th Parliament of Great Britain.
15th Parliament of Great Britain. 16th Parliament of Great Britain]
Richard Rigby"s father also had the same name, and was significant in the history of Jamaica, serving as its Secretary, the Provost Marshal, and a member of the Royal Assembly in the late 17th and early 18th century.
Rigby was elected Member of Parliament for Castle Rising in 1745, transferring to Sudbury at the next general election, and was initially a partisan of Frederick, Prince of Wales.
Subsequently, he transferred his allegiance to the Duke of Bedford, sitting as Member of Parliament (Member of Parliament) for the Bedford pocket borough of Tavistock and eventually becoming the Bedford Whigs" permanent "man of business" in the House of Commons.
