Richard Du Cane
British politician (1681-1774)
Richard Du Cane (13 October 1681 – 3 October 1744) was a British businessman and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1715 to 1722.
Du Cane was the son of Peter Du Cane, the elder and his wife Jane Booth, daughter of Richard Booth, a London merchant. The Du Cane family was of distinguished Huguenot descent and was a leading Essex 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, and served as a director of the Bank of England between 1710 and 1730. He was elected as a Whig Member of Parliament for Colchester (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 in 1719. He did not stand for parliament again.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Richard Du Cane” as british politician (1681-1774). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the people & ideas register because the source frames it as british politician (1681-1774). Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Oct 4, 2025. The linked authority identifier is Q7325285. VIAF identifies the subject as 5888152080603207230006. 1 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1681, 1744, 1715 and 1722.
Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.
- Establishing names and roles
- Building a first chronology
- Locating cited institutions
Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Richard Du Cane”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Richard Du Cane primary sources, Richard Du Cane archive and Richard research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Richard Du Cane”?
- Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
- How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Richard Du Cane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.