Richard Du Cane (13 October 1681 – 3 October 1744) was a British businessman and politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

from 1715 to 1722. Du Cane was the son of

Peter Du Cane, the elder Peter Du Cane (alias Du Quesne) (17 March 1645 – 16 September 1714), a descendant of Jean Du Quesne, the elder and son of Pierre du Quesne and Jeanne Maurois, was a third generation English-born descendant in a family of prominent and noble Hugu ...

and his wife Jane Booth, daughter of Richard Booth, a London merchant. The Du Cane family was of distinguished

Huguenot The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a religious group of French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, the Genevan burgomaster Be ...

descent and was a leading

Essex Essex () is a county in the East of England. One of the home counties, it borders Suffolk and Cambridgeshire to the north, the North Sea to the east, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent across the estuary of the River Thames to the south, and G ...

family of merchants and politicians. He married Anne Lyde, daughter of Nehemiah Lyde of Coggeshall and his wife Priscilla Reade on 17 August 1710. By his marriage, he acquired a substantial property near Colchester. Du Cane was a prominent businessman in the

City of London The City of London is a city, ceremonial county and local government district that contains the historic centre and constitutes, alongside Canary Wharf, the primary central business district (CBD) of London. It constituted most of London fr ...

, and served as a director of the

Bank of England The Bank of England is the central bank of the United Kingdom and the model on which most modern central banks have been based. Established in 1694 to act as the English Government's banker, and still one of the bankers for the Government of ...

between 1710 and 1730. He was elected as a Whig

Member of Parliament A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members of ...

for

Colchester Colchester ( ) is a city in Essex, in the East of England. It had a population of 122,000 in 2011. The demonym is Colcestrian. Colchester occupies the site of Camulodunum, the first major city in Roman Britain and its first capital. Colches ...

(Essex) at the 1715 general election. In 1716, he voted for the septennial bill and for the repeal of the Occasional Conformity and Schism Acts. He voted against the

Peerage Bill {{short description, Proposed British law of 1719 The Peerage Bill was a 1719 measure proposed by the British Whigs (British political party), Whig government led by James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope and Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland whic ...

in 1719. He did not stand for parliament again. He was sometime Governor of Christ's Hospital and

Guy's Hospital Guy's Hospital is an NHS hospital in the borough of Southwark in central London. It is part of Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust and one of the institutions that comprise the King's Health Partners, an academic health science centre. ...

. Du Cane's portrait is one of the well known paintings of Ignaz Stern.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Du Cane, Richard 1681 births 1744 deaths Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituencies British MPs 1715–1722