Richard Lyster

Richard Lyster (c. 1691–13 April 1766) of Rowton Castle, Shropshire, was a British landowner and Tory politician who sat in the House of Commons for 34 years between 1722 and 1766

Lyster was the eldest son of Thomas Lyster of Rowton Castle and his wife Elizabeth Beaw, daughter of Dr. William Beaw, Bishop of Llandaff. In 1702, he succeeded his father to Rowton. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, and matriculated at Christ Church, Oxford on 3 July 1708, aged 16, and entered Inner Temple in 1708. He married Anne Pigot, daughter of Robert Pigot of Chetwynd, Shropshire. He was elected Member of Parliament for Shrewsbury at the 1722 general election by a large majority. When he was unseated on a party vote on 9 April 1723, he marched out of the House with his back to the Speaker and was called to order for a discourtesy to the House. In response, he said: ‘When you learn justice, I will learn manners’, and when it was proposed to bring him to the bar of the House, Prime Minister Robert Walpole said ‘Let him go, he has been hardly enough used’.

Lyster died on 13 April 1766, aged 75. He had two sons and two daughters who all predeceased him.