Richard Ryves

Sir Richard Ryves (1643–1693) was a seventeenth-century Irish judge who served for several years as Recorder of Dublin, and subsequently as a Baron of the Exchequer. He was briefly a Commissioner of the Great Seal.

Background

He was born in Dublin, eldest son of Charles Ryves, examiner of the Court of Chancery (Ireland), who died in 1675, and his wife Jane Ogden. He was a grandson of Sir William Ryves, judge of the Court of King's Bench (Ireland) 1636-1648, by his first wife, of whom little is known.

In 1682 Sir Richard Stephens was dismissed from his office as Second Serjeant, on the grounds of being a nonconformist in religion. Ryves, who claimed to be the most senior King's counsel, expected to be appointed to the office and was bitterly disappointed to be passed over in favour of a rather obscure barrister called William Beckett. He was soon compensated with the office of Third Serjeant. This office was a very recent innovation, which had been created especially for Sir John Lyndon, who had been similarly disappointed in his hopes of becoming either Second Serjeant or a High Court judge. Ryves was promoted to Second Serjeant later in 1683. He combined the offices of Serjeant and Recorder, despite the fact that the latter office had a notoriously heavy workload, which may have contributed to the breakdown of his health. He was replaced as Recorder by Garrett Dillon in 1685.

As a Whig and a Protestant, Ryves was inevitably out of favour with the Roman Catholic King James II and was removed from his office of Serjeant in 1687. Following James's arrival in Ireland in 1689, Ryves was named as one of "the King's enemies" who were proscribed by the Jacobite Patriot Parliament.

Ryves moved to England and supported the Revolution of 1688. Returning to Ireland in 1689, he went as a judge of assize to Ulster, and was then appointed one of the Commissioners of the Great Seal in 1690, and was reappointed serjeant-at-law. the previous year he had referred to his "great infirmity". He took a seat on the Court of Exchequer in 1692, but died early the next year.