Richard Barry, 7th Earl of Barrymore

Richard Barry, 7th Earl of Barrymore (14 August 1769 – 6 March 1793) was an English nobleman of Ireland, as well as an infamous rake, gambler, sportsman, theatrical enthusiast and womanizer.

He was known as Hellgate and the Rake of Rakes and died at the age of 23.

Barrymore was born on 14 August 1769 in Marylebone, Middlesex, to Richard Barry, 6th Earl of Barrymore and Lady Amelia Stanhope, daughter of William Stanhope, 2nd Earl of Harrington and the Lady Caroline Fitzroy. He succeeded his father as Earl on 1 August 1773. His mother placed him under the care of the vicar of Wargrave in Berkshire, where he spent his pre-public school childhood and later settled.

He was educated at Eton College and arrived with an unusually large sum of £1,000 to his free will (equivalent to £110,863 in 2015). Soon he regularly summoned a London cab driver who would take him to London several times a week to satisfy his sexual appetite with a variety of 'ladies of the night'. He was a daring prankster, an attribute which was greatly attractive to the mischievous and impressionable future George IV. One of his most favoured practical jokes would involve pretending to kidnap girls from the streets of London and place coffins outside of their houses with a view to terrifying their servants. His infamy as a gambler was considerable at the time, including his wager that he could consume a large live tomcat in one sitting; however, he did not do so.

He was heavily in debt before marrying, but instead of "marrying into money" as was common for nobility at the time, he married Charlotte Goulding, niece of the infamous Letty Lade, and the daughter of a sedan chair man on 7 June 1792. After his death the next year, when she was eighteen years old, she remarried to Captain Robert Williams of the 3rd Foot Guards, but she eventually "...passed...to the lowest grade of prostitution...and possessed great pugilistic skill". However, she proved a useful and trustworthy assistant as matron of the female prisoners at the Tothill Fields Bridewell.

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