Richard Wilbraham Bootle

Richard Wilbraham-Bootle (20 September 1725 – 13 March 1796) was a British landowner and politician who sat in the House of Commons for 29 years from 1761 to 1790.

Early life

He was born Richard Wilbraham on 20 September 1725, the eldest son of Dorothy ( Kenrick) Wilbraham and Randle Wilbraham of Rode Hall, Cheshire.

He matriculated at St John's College, Oxford on 8 July 1742 and entered Lincoln's Inn in 1742 and was called to the bar in 1747.

Career Wilbraham Bootle was returned as Member of Parliament for Chester without a contest in the 1761 general election and was returned unopposed again in 1768, 1774 and 1780. In 1780 the English Chronicle described him as “one of the most independent Members in the House”. He was a member of the St. Alban's Tavern group which in February 1784 tried to bring Pitt and Fox together. In the 1784 general election, he was returned with a comfortable majority the first time he had to contest his seat at Chester. He retired in 1790. Only a few speeches by him are recorded and none were of any consequence. Upon his marriage, he took the additional name of Bootle. Together, they were the parents of at least six sons and eight daughters, including:

Anne Dorothea Wilbraham-Bootle (1757–1825), who married Richard Arden, 1st Baron Alvanley. Randle Bootle-Wilbraham (1773–1861), who married Letitia Rudd, daughter of Rev. Edward Rudd, in 1798. After her death in 1805, he married Sibylla Egerton, daughter of Philip Egerton, in 1808.

Wilbraham Bootle died on 13 March 1796. His eldest son Edward inherited Lathom House and was created Baron Skelmersdale. Rode Hall passed to his younger son, Randle Wilbraham, father of General Sir Richard Wilbraham.