Ralph Richardson (1812–1897/1898) was a Member of the New Zealand Legislative Council. He lived in New Zealand for less than a decade, and retired to Devon in England, and later to London.
Richardson was born in Capenhurst, Cheshire, England in 1812.[1] He was educated at Chester Grammar School, at the University of Edinburgh, graduating with an MD, and Downing College, Cambridge (from where he graduated MA and became a fellow); Richardson never practised as a doctor.[1] Aged 28, he married Marie Louise Seymour, a daughter of George Turner Seymour of Wraxall, Somerset.[1] They emigrated to New Zealand in 1851 on the Maori and first settled in Meadowbank near Blenheim.[2][3] Arthur Seymour, Marie's brother, accompanied them to New Zealand and settled in Picton.[4] Henry Seymour, who also returned to Nelson on that ship, was unrelated.[4][5][6] By 1854, the Richardsons were living in Nelson.[2]
Richardson was appointed to the Legislative Council on 31 December 1853.[7] He was a Member of the Executive Council in the first Fox Ministry from 24 May to 2 June 1856.[8] He resigned from the Legislative Council on 13 December 1856.[7] The Richardsons returned to England in 1858.[2] According to Henry Sewell's diary, "Mrs Richarson like[d] New Zealand, but the want of Servants [was] the one intolerable grievance."[9] They bought an estate in Devon where they lived until the 1880s.[1] His wife died in 1880,[10] and he later moved to London.[1] After his son Ralph (who was a New Zealand MHR from 1871 to 1873) died in Nelson on 22 December 1889,[11] he took in his daughter-in-law and her two small girls.[10] Richardson died in 1897[2] or 1898.[10]
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