Richard Becher (1721-1782)
RICHARD BECHER was the 8th and youngest child and 4th son of John Becher (c. 1683-1744) and Jane Eyre. He was born 26th November 1721 and christened at Richmond, Surrey, on Saturday 4th December. His godparents were his uncle, Sir Edward Becher, another uncle Richard Sambourne and an aunt, Mrs Eyre. He attended Merchant Taylors' School from 1728/9-1733. The school was then located in a manor house called the Manor of the Rose, Suffolk Lane, in the parish of St Lawrence Pountney in the City of London.
He went out to India arriving there on 2nd August 1743 as a Writer in the service of the East India Company becoming a Factor in 1745 and was a Member of the Board at Fort William from 1751 to 1760. In January 1746 a “parcel of silver” arrived aboard the Admiral Vernon docking in Fort George (later Madras) for Richard Becher and was delivered to him. By 1755 he was Chief of the Factory at Dacca but the following year he was forced to surrender to the forces of Siraj-ud-daula.
With peace restored, he returned to Calcutta and assumed his place as Fourth in the Bengal Council. On 3rd March 1758 he was appointed Sea Custom Master and the following year appointed Import and Sub-Import Warehouse keeper. By 1759 he was Third in the Council under Clive and was the senior of the “Quorum of Zemindars”. In December that year he signed a Despatch which resulted in his dismissal the following year, a protest instigated by Clive against allegations of misconduct by the Directors.
On 14th October 1759 Richard's wife, Charlotte, died aged just twenty-one never having fully recovered from the deprivations she suffered during the Mutiny. In 1760 Richard returned to England and became involved in EIC politics by virtue of his Bengal connections, Verelst in particular, for whom he was agent, and through his former contact with Clive in India. However, his main concern was to return to India where he had a number of interests.
In 1766, six year after leaving, he returned to India helped by a change of Directors and, with the support of prominent proprietors of stock, such as Lord Elibank who later claimed in 1771 that '...had it not been for me he (Becher) would never have returned to India...' In 1767, when Clive was Governor of Bengal, Richard Becher was reappointed to the Bengal Council and in 1769 was made Resident at Murshidabad with local control of the revenue administration of Bengal and, in co-operation with Verelst, set about reforming the Company's revenue system, about which he was thought to be an expert. However, he once again fell foul of the authorities by refusing to relinquish his views on revenue collection, despite opposition from the Bengal select committee. Although facing accusations of misrepresentation and slander he played a 'heroic' and 'humanitarian' role in alleviating the horrific effects of the disastrous Bengal famine before ill health forced him to resign in January 1770 due to 'his constitution being too much affected by the climate' and before orders for his dismissal could arrive from England.
Many accounts allude to the fortune he later lost helping his brother out of debt in England but until now there has been no explanation as to how large his fortune was or how he transferred his wealth from India. The answer can be found tucked away in one of the many volumes recording the correspondence between Fort William and India House in London. On 15th January 1771 he and his wife left India on the Europa following his resignation. A 'bulse' of diamonds belonging to him and 'valued at £300' (some £45m today) was entered, marked and numbered for carriage by the ship - presumably for insurance purposes – thus one of many returning to England having made their fortunes in India.
In London he lived at 26 Portman Square and at Rooks Nest, near Godstone, Surrey which he purchased in 1775. The property was set in 150 acres and he set about restoring and enlarging the house.
He was proposed by Clive's attorneys as a candidate for the 1774 election to the Court of Directors and with Ministerial support he stood for the hotly contested four-year class of directorship. Although others were confident he would be elected, he failed to be, however he was returned safely during the directorial elections the following April.
On 1st May 1777 he attended the annual meeting of the Governors of the Magdalen Hospital held at Merchant Taylors' Hall, London, to hear a sermon given by the Reverend Dr Glasse.
It was while he was in England that he tried to help his nephew, Captain William Becher of the Bedfordshire Militia, (the son of his elder brother John Becher of Leghorn and Howbury) recover from his mounting gambling debts. It was these massive debts that forced the sale of the family seat, Howbury Hall, to Nathaniel Polhill in 1781, and the sale of Richard Becher's own estate, Rooks Nest, to Col. Edward Clarke the same year.
Sir Francis Sykes reported to Warren Hastings in 1781:
I am sorry to inform you that you will lose one great Friend in the direction Mr.Becher who by a Weakness to a degree of Madness and hardly to be conceived has entirely ruined himself and Family chiefly from a motive of serving his Brother (Capt William Becher, not actually a brother, rather a nephew) in short, he is in that distress'd situation as to have made away with the whole of his fortune, and now throws himself upon the mercy of the Court of Directors to send him out to India ...
In January 1781 he resigned his Directorial seat after the Proprietors agreed to his reinstatement and was given a subordinate post as Head of the Calcutta Mint but there was little opportunity to restore his fortunes. He returned to Bengal that autumn with his wife and two sons, Richard and John, for whom he had secured nominations for the Bengal Civil Service. His return was chronicled in a local newspaper of October 1781 where it was announced that 'the circle of beauty has been greatly added to with the arrival of Mrs Becher.'
On 29th November 1752 he married firstly Charlotte Golightly at Calcutta, the daughter of Fenwick Golightly and his wife, also Charlotte. She was just fourteen years old.
They had one child, Charlotte Becher, born 3rd July 1754. She and her daughter were taken prisoner at Dacca 1756/7 during the defence of Calcutta and Fort William and were then held captive for two months in the French Factory at Dacca until their release by the intervention of Monsieur Courtin who also loaned the party a sloop to take them to Fulta where, to the great despair of her mother, their only daughter Charlotte died on 20th November 1756.
In 1757 Warren Hastings wrote a letter to Richard in which he said he was 'greatly concerned to hear that Mrs Becher's indisposition had increased' and implored Richard to send her for a change to Mrs Hastings' house in the country. Charlotte never recovered fully and just three years later, on 14th October 1759, Richard's wife died aged just 21.
Richard erected a memorial to his wife and daughter, photo below, in the cemetery of St John's Church, Calcutta, which reads:
Underneath this stone Lyeth the remains of Charlotte, the affectionate wife of Richard Becher Esq. in the East India Company's service in Bengal. She died the 14th day of October, in the Year of Our Lord 1759, in the 21st year of her age, after suffering with patience a long illness occasioned by grief for the loss of an only daughter, who departed this life at Fulta the 30th day of November 1756. This monument is erected to her memory by her Affected Husband.
On 19th December 1765 he married, secondly, Ann Hasleby at St Andrews Undershaft, in the City of London. She was born 5th June 1743 in Walworth, Surrey the daughter of Samuel Haselby and Ann.
Richard Becher died a year after his reinstatement on 17th November 1782 on his way upriver for his heath. The inscription on his tombstone at South Park Street Cemetery, Calcutta, reads:
Sacred to the memory of an honest Man, This humble stone records the Name and Fate (The latter, alas, how unequal to his worth!) of RICHARD BECHER, ESQ. Late Member of the Board of Trade, and once of the Council of this Presidency. Thro' a long life pass'd in the service of the Company, What his conduct was The Annals of the Company will shew: On this Tablet sorrowing Friendship tell, That Having reach'd, in a modest independence, What he deemed the honourable Reward of a life of Service, To enjoy it He returned in the year 1774 to his Native Land, Where private esteem and public confidence awaited. But where misfortune also overtook him. By nature open, liberal, and compassionate; unpractised in guile himself, and not suspecting it in others, to prop the declining credit of a friend, he was led to put his all to the hazard, and fell a victim to his own benevolence. After a short pause and agonizing conflict, bound by domestic claims to fresh exertions, in 1781 he returned to the scene of his earlier efforts. But the vigour of life was past and seeing, thro' the calamity of the times, his prospects darken in the hopeless effort to re-erect the fortunes of his family, under the pang of disappointment and the pressure of the climate, a worn mind and debilitated body sank to rest. Unerring wisdom ordained that his reward should not be of this world and removed him to an eternity of happiness. Nov 17. 1782. Aetat suæ 61.
After Richard died, his widow married General Charles Auriol whose sister, Sophia, married John Prinsep, thus they were the grandparents of Augusta Emily Prinsep, who went on to marry Septimus Harding Becher, a grandson of Richard and Ann!
Richard Becher and his second wife, Anne Haselby, who died 30th July 1808 at Taplow, Buckinghamshire, had seven children - six sons and one daughter - of whom five survived.
Richard Becher (1764-1846)
John Becher (1765-1830)
Robert Stephens Becher (1765-1818)
Charlotte Becher (1765-1837)
William Augustus Becher (1772-1778)
Charles Becher (1776-1842)
George Becher (1780-1837)