Richard Tickell

Richard Tickell (1751–1793) was an English playwright and satirist. He was the second son of the three sons and two daughters of John Tickell (1729–1782), a clerk in chancery, and magistrate in Dublin, and his wife Esther Pierson, and thus he was a grandson of the poet Thomas Tickell, who married the Irish heiress Clotilde Eustace, daughter of Sir Maurice Eustace of Harristown. Before his birth, his father had moved the family to New Windsor, Berkshire, as a result of disturbances in Dublin, so Richard Tickell is said to have been born at Bath, where he later built Beaulieu House, Newbridge Hill. Richard may have been educated at Harrow or Winchester and may have been an assistant at Eton, although this is contentious. He definitely entered the Middle Temple on 8 November 1768 to read for the law, and was later appointed as one of the sixty commissioners in bankruptcy. In 1778 he was deprived of this place, but regained it after his acquaintance David Garrick successfully petitioned Lord Chancellor Bathurst.