GREENACRES, Richard (d.1593), of Walthamstow, Essex and Clitheroe, Lancs.

It is uncertain whether it was the son or the father who sat for Clitheroe in 1571. The father, at the age of 63, was perhaps unlikely to travel from Lancashire to London for a first and only term in Parliament. The son, an Inner Temple lawyer (though no record of his call to the bar has been found) could well have been returned as a young man of local origin who was already resident in London. Either man might have had the support of the 3rd Earl of Derby, lord lieutenant of Lancashire. A third Richard Greenacres, perhaps the son’s nephew, was involved in a financial scandal at Clitheroe in 1586.1PCC 69 Nevell, 89 Dixy; T. D. Whitaker, Hist. Whalley, 295; W. S. Weeks, Clitheroe, 133; Chetham Soc. n.s. xcii. 9; Pink and Beaven, Parl. Rep. Lancs. 248; P. S. Seaer, Puritan Lectureships, 41; DL1/136/N3, 212/N1;DL7/14/16;C3/225/43; I. T. Recs.i. 334; St. Ch. 5/H9/24.