Richard Wyche (merchant)

Richard Wyche (or Wiche) (1554–1621) was a London shipowner and merchant. He was on the first Committee of Directors of the English East India Company, assisted in the formation of the North West Company in 1612, and was among the adventurers of the Muscovy Company. He died on 20 November 1621 and was buried at St. Dunstan's in the East. Wiche Islands or Wiche's Land (discovered and named in 1617, and now erroneously called Kong Karls Land), Wichebukta (on the east coast of Spitsbergen), Wichefjellet (also on the Spitsbergen’s east coast), and Wiche Sound (named and discovered in 1614 and now called Liefdefjorden and Woodfjorden) were named after him.

A descendant of a former Lord Mayor of London in the fifteenth century, Richard Wyche, Gentleman and Mercer, married Elizabeth Saltonstall, daughter of Sir Richard Saltonstall, Member of Parliament and Lord Mayor of London. Elizabeth's first cousin was another Sir Richard Saltonstall, who in 1630 established a North American colony in Massachusetts. This couple had many sons; the Honorable Nathaniel Wyche lived in India and was President of the East India Company in the late 1650s. Another son was the Rt Hon. Sir Peter Wyche, Ambassador to Constantinople (Ottoman Empire), who married Jane Meredith. Their children included (the second) Sir Peter Wyche, Sir Cyril Wyche, and Lady Jane Wyche, who married John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. Rt. Hon. Sir Peter Wyche was one of the Chancellors of Oxford University, and his sons Sir Cyril and Sir Peter were among the founding members of the British Royal Society. Jane Wyche Granville was Countess of Bath and Lady of the Bedchamber to Henrietta Maria of France, Queen Consort of King Charles I of England.

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