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Richard Godolphin Long (2 October 1761 – 1 July 1835)[1] was an English banker and Tory politician.
Baptised at West Lavington, Wiltshire a month after his birth, he was the son of Richard Long (died 1787)[2] and his wife Meliora, descendant of Sir John Lambe.[3]
By 1800, Long was a partner in the Melksham Bank, together with his younger brother John Long, John Awdry and Thomas Bruges.[4] In 1799, he purchased Steeple Ashton Manor House and farm,[5] which remained in the family until 1967, and commissioned architect Jeffry Wyattville to build Rood Ashton House nearby in 1808.[6]
He was appointed High Sheriff of Wiltshire for 1794. Long entered the House of Commons in 1806, sitting for Wiltshire until 1818.[1] He was the founder of the Royal Wiltshire Yeomanry.
On 28 March 1786, he married Florentina Wrey, third daughter of Sir Bourchier Wrey, 6th Baronet,[2] and had by her four daughters and two sons.[7] After a lingering illness Long died aged 73, at Rood Ashton House, six weeks after his wife, and was interred in the family's crypt at St Mary's Church, Steeple Ashton.[2] Their children included:
- Walter (1793–1867), the eldest son, was also a member of parliament, representing North Wiltshire[8]
- Ellen, the eldest daughter, married John Walmesley in 1812;[9] their children included Richard Walmesley (1816–1893), a lawyer and latterly owner of Lucknam Park, Wiltshire[10]
- Florentina (Flora), having been previously engaged to Henry Cobbe (uncle of Frances Power Cobbe), who had died the day before the proposed marriage,[11] formed a strong attachment to the then-elderly poet George Crabbe.[12] Flora and her aunts were frequent visitors of novelist Jane Austen, who referred to Flora as her 'cousin', though their exact relationship is not known.[13] Austen never met Crabbe, but nursed a fantasy of becoming his wife.[14]
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