Richard Freeman (Irish judge)

He was born in Gloucestershire, the eldest son of John Freeman and his wife Anne Croft. He was educated at Christ Church, Oxford and called to the Bar in 1674. He married firstly in 1693 Elizabeth, one of the many daughters of the leading politician and barrister Sir Anthony Keck, and his wife Mary Thorne. Elizabeth died in childbirth with her only daughter Mary in 1699. He married secondly^[1] in 1702 Anne Marshal of Durham, who outlived him by many years. His first marriage was an advantageous one since his father-in-law Sir Anthony Keck was a very rich man. However, Freeman's children may have found the Keck inheritance something of a mixed blessing, as it led after his death to much acrimony and years of litigation between the heirs. By the time of his first marriage in 1693, he was already the owner of what seems to have been a substantial estate at Batsford in Gloucestershire.

By his first marriage, he had one daughter, Mary, who married Walter Edwards of Ham, Surrey, and had issue, including Thomas Edwards-Freeman; by his second marriage, he had one son, Richard junior, and one daughter, Anne. All three of his children were still living in 1727, when the long and bitter lawsuit over their father's estate was finally concluded by a verdict that any claim that Mary had on the estate must be set off against the sum of £5000 which her father had settled on her.^[2] Mary died in 1736; Anne had died unmarried some years earlier. Richard junior died in 1741, without issue. Mary's direct descendants died out in 1808.^[3]