Richard Edward Arden

A carte-de-visite portrait of Richard Edward Arden (1804-1894), landowner, barrister and High Sheriff.

He was born on 4 October 1804, the second son of Joseph Arden, a barrister of Red Lion Square, London. Richard Arden was an attorney at 18 Red Lion Square 1827-1844; barrister 9 June 1847; sheriff of Pembrokeshire 1872; principal of Clifford's Inn, London, February 1879 to death; master of the Pewters' company; a magistrate on the Sunbury bench and at the Middlesex sessions. He devoted much time to the Feltham reformatory, St Luke's, the Foundling, and St Bartholomew's hospitals and other public institutions. He died at his residence, East Burnham House near Slough on 17 April 1894.

[Source: Boase, Modern English Biography, supplement to volume 1, published 1908.]

The 1861 census shows him living at Sunbury Park, Middlesex, with his wife, Mary, seven children, aged between 20 and 9, and nine servants, including a governess, a butler, a footman, a cook, a nurse, and an under-nurse. When he completed his return for the census, Arden gave his place of birth as 'St Andrew's, Holborn' and his profession as 'Magistrate and Dept. Lieut. for the County of Middlesex, and Barrister at Law, but not in practice.

Photographed on 16 May 1862 by Camille Silvy of London.