Richard Bolton

Sir Richard Bolton (January 1570 – November 1648) was an English lawyer and judge, who was an important figure in Irish political life in the 1630s and 1640s. Life He was the son of John Bolton, of Fenton, Staffordshire and Margaret Ash, daughter of Richard Ash, and was born about 1570. He apparently practised for a time as a barrister in England. He was a defendant in a lawsuit about land in Fenton Calvert, Stafford, three miles from Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Queen Elizabeth I's time. He moved to Ireland with the object, it was alleged, of avoiding the results of an unfavourable judgment passed on him by the court of Star-Chamber in this lawsuit. At the end of 1604, he obtained office as temporary Recorder of Dublin, and was confirmed in the post in 1605. He became an Alderman of Dublin Corporation the same year. Through government influence he was elected in 1613, in opposition to the Roman Catholic candidate, one of the representatives of Dublin City in the Irish House of Commons of which the Crown candidate Sir John Davies became the Speaker, although it was credibly claimed that a majority of the House had actually voted for the Catholic candidate Sir John Everard. Bolton resigned from the Recordership of Dublin in the same year.