Richard Beckford (died 12 August 1796) was an English Whig politician.
Biography
Beckford was one the first mixed-race Members of Parliament of the Parliament of Great Britain and served for the constituencies of Bridport, Arundel and Leominster from 1780 until his death in 1796.
He previously, unsuccessfully, attempted to be elected to Hindon in both 1774, against Thomas Brand Hollis and Richard Smith, and the 1775 by-election when both Smith and Hollis were removed from office for bribery, but was unsuccessful.
Beckford's father, William Beckford, was an MP and plantation owner, whilst his mother was a Jamaican slave.
References
- "Summary of Individual | Legacies of British Slavery". www.ucl.ac.uk.
- "BECKFORD, Richard (d.1796), of Nicholas Lane, Lombard St., London | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 2023-01-10.
- Lees, Rebecca (October 28, 2020). "Who were the first MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds?" – via commonslibrary.parliament.uk.
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - "BECKFORD, Richard (D.1796), of Nicholas Lane, Lombard St., London | History of Parliament Online".
- Goodrich, Amanda (2019-02-07). Henry Redhead Yorke, Colonial Radical: Politics and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1772-1813. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-429-61883-3.
See also
Categories:- 1796 deaths
- British people of Jamaican descent
- British MPs 1780–1784
- British MPs 1784–1790
- British MPs 1790–1796
- British MPs 1796–1800
- 18th-century British politicians
- People from Arundel
- People from Bridport
- People from Leominster
- Politicians from Herefordshire
- Black British MPs
- Black British politicians
- Whig (British political party) MPs for English constituencies
- Beckford family
- Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for Bridport