Solomon Richards was a professional soldier who fought in Ireland first for Cromwell and then for William of Orange. He is best known for his part in a failed attempt to relieve the Siege of Derry in 1689.
Family
He was born in 1619 and his baptism on 14 November 1619 is recorded in the parish registers of St Andrew, Holborn. The register states that he was the son of Salloman Richards and his wife Ann, a cutler living near the Cross Keyes. He married first Rhoda daughter of Samuel Wilson and Anne Miller. She was buried on 7 Nov 1645 at St Olave, Old Jewery having died in childbirth. They had a daughter Rhoda. He married secondly Abigail Goddard daughter of Henry Goddard, shipbuilder. The marriage took place before Henry made his will on 30 Aug 1647. Her brother Jonathon Goddard was Cromwell's personal physician.
With Cromwell
Solomon Richards served as lieutenant-colonel of Oliver Cromwell's own regiment in the Parliamentarian army. He took part in the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland and was granted 3,000 acres at Solsborough in County Wexford, probably under the terms of the Act for the Settlement of Ireland of 1652. In 1659 he was appointed Governor of Wexford town. That was after Cromwell's death and perhaps even after the end of the protectorate in May 1659.
At the Restoration in 1660, he was deposed as governor of Wexford and was briefly imprisoned. He was released and was confirmed in the possession of his newly acquired lands by the Act of Settlement of 1662. For the following twenty-seven years he lived quietly on his Irish estate at Solsborough.
Glorious Revolution
In September 1688 he was commissioned by King James II to raise a new regiment of foot to provide him with reliable troops to counter the menace of William's invasion. As a Protestant Richards seems an unusual choice but he was a nonconformist and James tried to create an alliance of Catholics and non-Anglican Protestants, both of whom had suffered from the Penal Laws. Rather than raising his regiment in Ireland as might be expected, he recruited his men from London and the Home Counties. Following James's flight to France, he sided with William and his regiment became part of William's reformed Army.
Cunningham's Expedition to Derry
In the early phase of the ensuing Williamite war in Ireland, the city of Derry in Ulster, which was held for William by Lieutenant-Colonel Robert Lundy, was menaced by the Irish army of Tyrconnell and James II. William sent Colonel Cunningham with an expeditionary force to Derry to defend the city. This force consisted of two regiments of foot, Cunningham's own and Richards's, together about 1600 men. They sailed from Liverpool in 1689 on nine transport ships escorted by the fourth-rate frigate and reached Lough Foyle downstream of the city on 15 April 1689. That very day Lundy suffered the defeat of the Battle of the Fords, where he led his Irish Protestant force in an attempt to prevent the Irish under Richard Hamilton and de Rosen from crossing the River Finn and approaching Derry. As Lundy's poorly organised troops streamed back towards the city walls, he issued several contradictory orders to Cunningham and Richards. They were summoned to a council of war in the city, where Lundy informed them that it was pointless landing their troops as the city's defeat and surrender were imminent. Richards and Cunningham therefore sailed back to Britain without landing their troops just at the time when the Siege of Derry began in earnest. After their arrival back in England they were both dismissed from the command of their regiments for dereliction of duty. Richards was replaced by George St George, another Irishman. As Derry was able to hold out until a second relief force under General Percy Kirke arrived, questions were raised in the English Parliament about Cunningham's and Richards' conduct. He died in 1691 and was buried in the North Cloister of Westminster Abbey on 6 October 1691. Richards had many children. It is sometimes wrongly stated that he was the father of Jacob Richards an engineer officer, who also served William in Ireland where he was wounded during the Siege of Carrickfergus. Jacob and his brothers Michael and John were the sons of a certain Jacob Richards and his wife Ann. This mistake seems to have originated in one Betham's sketch pedigrees
