Sir Richard Willcocks

Knighted in 1827.

The miniature portrait of Sir Richard Willcocks was painted by Adam Buck (1759-1833). It was sold by Sotheby's, 1962.

Sir Richard Henry Willcocks, first Inspector-General of the Munster Constabulary.. He was born 26 July 1768 and died 7 April 1834 and like many of the family was buried in the family plot at Chapelizod, near Dublin. He was married to Lucy Anne Irwin.

Sir Richard was employed from 1807 to 1827 in active service in different parts of Ireland. He was sent as a Stipendiary Magistrate, from time to time, into the Counties of Kerry, Limerick, Tipperary, Cork, Waterford, Kilkenny, Meath, and Westmeath; and, according to Baron Hatherton, Chief Secretary to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (1833-4)2, ‘By his own exertions unaided by police, he successively tranquillized those counties.’ This, Hatherton writes, ‘was affected chiefly by obtaining private information, apprehending the principal offenders, bringing them to trial, securing witnesses, and preventing them from being tampered with.’

Writing in 1827, Hatherton notes Willcock’s role in the suppression of the Emmet conspiracy: ‘In 1803, he obtained and communicated to the Government the first information of Emmet’s designs, and thereby prevented the insurgents from gaining possession of Dublin. On that occasion he narrowly escaped assassination; eight persons having been stationed in different places for the purpose of attacking him. Immediately afterwards he organized a Yeomanry Corps in the County of Dublin, with the assistance of which he maintained the tranquillity of his own neighbourhood. He apprehended and committed to prison 35 persons concerned in Emmet’s insurrection.’3

The Willcocks family lived at St. Lawrence Manor, Chapelizod.