Richard Cresswell

Richard Cresswell (1688–1743) was an English landowner and politician.

The first son of a "roaring Shropshire squire" Richard Cresswell of Sidbury, Shropshire and his wife Mary Moreton, and grandson of a staunch Cavalier, also named Richard Cresswell (formerly a page to Charles I); Cresswell was nicknamed "Black Dick Cresswell". He had inherited his father's unstable traits, but also his grandfather's loyalism. His father, having been disinherited, was described as "a perfect madman", "a Judas and devil incarnate" by his son-in-law, who when obliged to stay with the family for a time at Sidbury, wrote that "to live with him (Cresswell the elder) is to live in Bedlam, for he is made up of noise, nonsense, railing, bawling and impertinence....".

Richard Cresswell succeeded in 1708 to his grandfather's very considerable estates, including several manors in Staffordshire, Shropshire and Herefordshire. By the time he married, Cresswell was already enjoying a reputation as a "giddy rake". He married, in 1709, Elizabeth, the daughter of Sir Thomas Estcourt, heiress to her brother Thomas Estcourt (d. 1704) of Pinkney Park, Sherston, Wiltshire. The addition of his wife's properties, including the Wiltshire manors of Sherston, Malmesbury and Norton, helped consolidate his position among the gentry of north Wiltshire. From 1726 till 1730 he was known to be in France, travelling with "one Mrs Smith, called his niece". In 1730, due to financial problems, he was forced to mortgage his Pinkney Park for £10,000; the Norton manor had already been sold in 1714. In his final years the administration of his estate was left to his son Thomas Estcourt Cresswell.

He died intestate in 1743, leaving two sons from his first marriage.