Individual Details

Biography

Houghton’s grandfather completed the building of Houghton Tower in 1565 on the summit of a hill four miles west of Blackburn. Its central tower was blown up in the civil war. In Houghton’s day the park was ‘much replenished with wild beasts’. The grandfather, a Catholic, went into exile in 1569, and his son Thomas, Richard’s father, was murdered in 1589 when Richard was still a minor. He became the ward of the master of the rolls, whose daughter he married, and who brought him to conform to the Anglican church. On 8 Feb. 1600 Houghton reported to Cecil that as sheriff he had apprehended a seminary priest at his brother-in-law’s house at Lancaster. That October his ‘great service’ in arresting seminary priests was praised by the bishop of Chester. As a knight of the shire in 1601 Houghton was a member of the main business committee (3 Nov.) and the committee on monopolies (23 Nov.).
Houghton entertained James I at Houghton Tower for three days on his journey south, when the entire avenue was carpeted in velvet. The diversions included hunting and a masque. After his wife’s death Houghton had two sons by Jane Hesketh, but it is not known whether they married. He was reprimanded by the King in 1622 because he ‘kept and maintained’ a lady named Penelope Hillyard. Houghton died on 12 Nov. 1630 and was succeeded by his son Gilbert, who inherited at least seven manors, over 300 houses and gardens, 100 orchards, and many thousands of acres of land. The house was restored in the nineteenth century.
VCH Lancs. vi. 40-3; Abram, Blackburn, 95-6, 625, 715, 718, 723-5; Stanley Pprs. (Chetham Soc. xxxi), 202; Leatherbarrow, Lancs. Eliz. Recusants, 142-3; HMC Hatfield, x. 30, 344; D’Ewes, 624, 649; CSP Dom. 1589-1601, p. 222; 1619-23, p. 145; Baines, Lancs. iv. 178 seq.; Wards 7/86/188; Gillow, Lord Burghley’s Map of Lancs. 1590, p. 14.

Sir Richard Hoghton, 1st Baronet (28 September 1570 – 1630) was a politician who sat in the House of Commons between 1601 and 1611.
Hoghton Tower.
He was born the eldest son of Thomas Hoghton of Hoghton Tower, Lancashire by Anne, the daughter of Henry Keighley of Keighley, Yorkshire. Thomas was murdered in 1589.
He was appointed High Sheriff of Lancashire for 1599 and was knighted in January 1600. In 1601 he was elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Lancashire and was re-elected MP for Lancashire in 1604.
Hoghton was one of the first baronets, created on 22 May 1611.
Aa a staunch presbyterian, he promoted active dissent, a tradition that would be continued by later members of the family.[4]
Hoghton died in 1630. He had married firstly Catherine, the daughter of Sir Gilbert Gerard with whom he had five sons and eight daughters, and secondly Jane, the daughter of Thomas Spencer of Rufford and widow of Robert Hesketh, with whom he had two more sons. The baronetcy was inherited by his eldest son Gilbert.

Birth	26 Oct 1570	Lancaster, England
Death	1630
Marriage		Catherine Gerard

Spouse	Catherine Gerard (1569 - 1617)
Child	Ratcliffe Ralph Houghton (1613 - 1705)

Father	Thomas Houghton ( - 1589)
Mother	Anne Elisabeth Keighley (1549 - 1609)