Richard Godolphin Long (2 October 1761 – 1 July 1835)[1] was an English banker and
Tory politician.
Life and career
Baptised at
West Lavington, Wiltshire a month after his birth, he was the son of Richard Long (died 1787)[2] and his wife Meliora, descendant of Sir John Lambe.[3]
By 1800, Long was a partner in the
Melksham Bank, together with his younger brother John Long, John Awdry and Thomas Bruges.[4] In 1799, he purchased
Steeple Ashton Manor House and farm,[5] which remained in the family until 1967, and commissioned architect
Jeffry Wyattville to build
Rood Ashton House nearby in 1808.[6]
On 28 March 1786, he married Florentina Wrey, third daughter of
Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet,[2] and had by her four daughters and two sons.[7] After a lingering illness Long died aged 73, at Rood Ashton House, six weeks after his wife, and was interred in the family's crypt at
St Mary's Church, Steeple Ashton.[2] Their children included:
Walter (1793–1867), the eldest son, was also a member of parliament, representing
North Wiltshire[8]
Ellen, the eldest daughter, married John Walmesley in 1812;[9] their children included
Richard Walmesley (1816–1893), a lawyer and latterly owner of
Lucknam Park, Wiltshire[10]
Florentina (Flora), having been previously engaged to Henry Cobbe (uncle of
Frances Power Cobbe), who had died the day before the proposed marriage,[11] formed a strong attachment to the then-elderly poet
George Crabbe.[12] Flora and her aunts were frequent visitors of novelist
Jane Austen, who referred to Flora as her 'cousin', though their exact relationship is not known.[13] Austen never met Crabbe, but nursed a fantasy of becoming his wife.[14]
^Mitchell, Sally (2004). Frances Power Cobbe: Victorian Feminist, Journalist, Reformer. Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley.
ISBN0-8139-2271-2.
^Alexander Meyrick Broadley;
Walter Jerrold; George Crabbe (1913). The Romance of an Elderly Poet: A Hitherto Unknown Chapter in the Life of George Crabbe, Revealed by his 10 Years Correspondence with Elizabeth Charter 1815–1825. London: Stanley Paul & Co.