THOMPSON, Richard (d.c.1735), of Coley, Reading, Berks.

Richard Thompson, a Jamaica merchant, was said to be the grandson of Sir Samuel Thompson of Bradfield, Berks., sheriff of London in 1688 and kinsman of the 1st Lord Haversham.2Constance, Lady Russell, Swallowfield and its Owners, 233; Le Neve, Knights (Harl. Soc. viii), 45. Having bought the manors of Whitley and Coley on the outskirts of Reading,3VCH Berks. iii. 364-5, 367. he informed the board of Trade in February 1711 that he did not intend to return to Jamaica, where he was replaced on the local council.4APC Col. 1680-1720, p. 812; CSP Col. 1710-11, pp. 363-4. While serving as sheriff for the county he was returned as a Whig for Reading at an unexpected contested by-election in March 1720. Later in that year he was one of the eight patentees of the Royal Mining Company, formed to develop gold and silver mines in Jamaica, who invested their subscribers’ funds in the South Sea Company and went into liquidation. Defeated at Reading in 1722, but successful in 1727, he voted for the Administration on the army in 1732 and the excise bill in 1733. He did not stand in 1734 and was apparently dead by Michaelmas 1736.5R. M. Howard, Longs of Jamaica, i. 68-70, 72-73.