Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich

The Right Honourable The Lord Rich Kt
Speaker of the House of Commons
In office 9 June 1536 – 18 July 1536
Preceded by	Humphrey Wingfield
Succeeded by	Nicholas Hare
Lord Chancellor
In office 1547–1552
Preceded by	The Lord St John
Succeeded by	Thomas Goodrich
Personal details
Born	(1496-07-00)July 1496
Died	12 June 1567 (aged 70–71) Rochford, Essex
Occupation	Lord Chancellor of England

Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich (1496/7 – 12 June 1567), was Lord Chancellor during the reign of King Edward VI of England from 1547 until January 1552. He was the founder of Felsted School with its associated alms houses in Essex in 1564. He was a beneficiary of suppression of the monasteries, and a persecutor and sometimes torturer of those opposed to the officially established church, whether it be Roman Catholic or Church of England.

According to some sources, Rich was born in the London parish of St Lawrence Jewry, the second son of Richard Rich by Joan Dingley; according to Carter, he was born at Basingstoke, Hampshire, the son of John Rich (d. 1509?), of Penton Mewsey, Hampshire, and a wife named Agnes whose surname is unknown. Early in 1551 he was described in an official document as 'fifty-four years of age and more', and was therefore born about 1496. He had a brother, Robert, who was granted a messuage in Bucklersbury by Henry VIII on 24 February 1539, and who died in 1557.

According to Sergeaunt (1889):

Little is known of his early life. He may have studied at Cambridge before 1516. In 1516 he entered the Middle Temple as a lawyer and at some point between 1520 and 1525 he was a reader at the New Inn. By 1528 we know that Rich was in search of a patron and wrote to Cardinal Wolsey; in 1529, Thomas Audley succeeded in helping him get elected as an MP for Colchester. As Audley's career advanced in the early 1530s so did Rich's through a variety of legal posts, before he became truly prominent in the mid-1530s.

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