# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Bingham, Richard (1765-1858)

​BINGHAM, RICHARD, the elder (1765–1858), divine, was born 1 April 1765. He was son of the Rev. Isaac Moody Bingham, rector of Birchanger and Runwell, Essex, and great-grandson of Joseph Bingham, author of the 'Origines Ecclesiasticæ.' He was educated successively at Winchester, where he was on the foundation, and at New College, Oxford, where he took the degrees respectively of B.A. 19 Oct. 1787 and B.C.L. 18 July 1801 (Oxford Graduate). He was married at Bristol to Lydia Mary Anne, eldest daughter of Rear-admiral Sir Charles Douglas, bart., 10 Nov. 1788, at which time he was a fellow of his college and in holy orders (Gent. Mag. November 1788). In ​1790, or more probably in 1788 or 1789 (Preface to Proceedings, &c. 8vo, London, 1814, p. vi., and Proceedings, &c. p. 174 &c.), he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Trinity Church, Gosport; in 1796 he became vicar of Great Hale, near Sleaford, Lincolnshire, and was appointed, 22 July 1807, in succession to his father, to the prebendal stall of Bargham in Chichester Cathedral. In 1813, being then a magistrate for Hampshire of twelve years' standing, he was convicted at the Winchester summer assizes of having illegally obtained a license for a public-house, when no such public-house was in existence, and of having stated, in the conveyance of such house, a false consideration of the same, with intent to defraud the revenue by evading an additional stamp duty of 10l. (Annual Register, 1813). On 10 Nov. 1813 a motion was made in the King's Bench for a new trial on behalf of the defendant, He was brought up for judgment on the 26th of the same month, and in spite of many affidavits to his character was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in the county gaol at Winchester. In an appeal to public opinion dated 23 Dec. 1813, Bingham asserted his innocence with the most vehement deprecations. The appeal is embodied in the Preface to 'Proceedings in a Trial, The King, on the Prosecution of James Cooper, against the Rev. Richard Bingham, and on a Motion for a new Trial, and on the Defendant's being brought up for Judgment. Taken in shorthand by Mr. Gurney. With explanatory Preface and Notes and an Appendix,' 8vo, London, 1814. In 1829 Mr. Bingham published, by subscription, the third edition of the 'Origines Ecclesiasticæ' of his ancestor. He reprinted all the contents of the old octavo and folio editions, introducing into the notes some further references from the author's manuscript annotations in a private copy of his own book, and adding for the first time an impression of the author's three 'Trinity Sermons,' besides prefixing a 'Life of the Author, by his Great-grandson.' The bankruptcy of the printer while the work was passing through the press caused much delay in its distribution (Prolegomena, &c. p. x). Bingham died at his residence of Newhouse on the beach at Gosport, on Sunday, 18 July 1858, and was buried on Tuesday, the 27th of the same month, in the vaults of Trinity Church, in the presence of a very large number of his friends and parishioners.
[Graduati Cantabrigienses. 4to, Cambridge, 1787; Gent. Mag. March 1807. April 1847. and September 1858; Le Neve's Fasti; Proceedings, &c. London, 1814; Annual Register. 1813; Origines Ecclesiastiæ, London. 1829; Miss Bingham's Short Poems, Bolton, 1848; Hampshire Telegraph, 24 and 31 July 1868.]
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