Family Connections

This biography of Colonel Richard Bingham of Melcombe Bingham, Dorset, England was first published in The Annual Biography and Obituary for the year 1825.

Bingham, Richard, Esq. Colonel of the Dorset regiment of Militia ; at his seat at Melcombe, Bingham, co. Dorset; April 7; in his 83d year. He was descended from a long line of ancestors who can boast of an uninterrupted male line from the time of Henry the First, a period of nearly 700 years; they were established and have lived in the present mansion since the reign of Henry the Third, when Robert de Byngham, second son of Sir Ralph de Byngham of Sutton Bingham, co. Somerset, became possessed of the Melcombe property, by a marriage with Lucy, daughter of Sir Robert Tuberville, Knt.

The late Colonel Bingham was twice married; first, to Sophia, daughter of Charles Halsey, esq. of Great Gaddesden, co. Herts; and, secondly, to Elizabeth, daughter and heir of John Ridout, esq. of Dean’s Leaze, co. Dorset, who died Dec. 30, 1814. By each of these ladies he had a family.

He came at an early period of life into his property, his father having died when he was fourteen years of age, so that he had been in possession of his mansion and estates nearly seventy years.

Before the breaking out of the American war, he accepted a company in the County Regiment of Militia, of which he was appointed Colonel in the year 1799. He was unremittingly zealous, and always attentive to the duties of an officer, sacrificing every thing to the benefit of the corps, and suffering no private inclinations or interest to interfere in this particular. He had the singular good fortune, during the long period he commanded the regiment, to merit the commendation and approbation of those above him, whilst he secured, in an eminent degree, the love, gratitude, esteem, and affection, of every rank submitted to his orders. No man ever enjoyed a more universal or deserved popularity, which extended not only to the officers and soldiers of the regiment, but throughout the whole county, and wherever he was known; and the officers having requested him some years since to sit for his picture, an excellent likeness was taken by Bestland, a print from which is to be found in the house of almost every gentleman and respectable yeoman in the county of Dorset

He brought up several of his sons in the service of their king and country, and he had the felicity to see his choice justified, and their exertions crowned with success in the paths he had traced out for them. “Richard, his eldest son, has some time since attained the rank of Lieutenant-general. Charles Cox (who lost his arm in action in St. Domingo, 1796) is a Lieut-colonel of Artillery. George Ridout (who was wounded at the battle of Salamanca) is a Major-general, K.C.B. and Knight Companion of the Portuguese Military Order of the Tower and Sword; and John is a Lieutenant in the Navy, whose hopes were blasted, and his promotion arrested, by his capture and subsequent detention for seven years, as a prisoner in France.

Thus respected and beloved, full of years, having passed a long life in the enjoyment of almost uninterrupted health, and in the unwearied practice of ” doing as he would be done by,” he is gathered to his lathers, leaving a bright example to those who knew him, to follow his paths, if they would wish to obtain a similar well-earned reputation in this life, and a well founded hope of a better.