Family and Education

b. by 1489.2

Offices Held

Mayor, Chipping Wycombe 1511-12, 1523-4, 1525-6, alderman by 1527; commr. subsidy, Bucks. 1512, 1514.3

Biography

Little has come to light about Richard Birch. He was probably related to John Birch who died in 1521 having made a short will asking for burial in the church at Chipping Wycombe. Land there and in Kimble was owned in 1533 by Margery Birch, widow, of Wallingford who instructed her executors to bury her beside her husband in the chapel of Wallingford castle. Richard Birch may have also been a kinsman of the family established at Chesham, where a Richard Birch senior died in the mid 1550s. Birch is known to have sat in one Parliament, but he could have done so in others, for which the names of the Wycombe Members are lost. When returned in 1510 he promised to forego wages, and Robert Pettifer, a kinsman of his fellow-Member, George Pettifer, stood guarantor of the pledge. In 1524 Birch was assessed for the subsidy on goods worth £26 13s.4d. He was still alive in 1527 when, as one of the aldermen, he was concerned with a fair.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. First Wycombe Ledger Bk. (Bucks. Rec. Soc. xi), no. 61.
• 2. Presumed to be of age at election.
• 3. First Wycombe Ledger Bk. no. 63; T. Langley, Hundred of Desborough, 79; Statutes, iii. 86, 118.
• 4. Bucks. RO, D/A/W/E1/38, 10/65; PCC 2 Bodfelde, 19 Thrower; First Wycombe Ledger Bk. nos. 61, 72, 77; Subsidy Roll for Bucks. 1524 (Bucks. Rec. Soc. viii), 29.