Richard Gildart

File:Richard Gildart (1673-1770) by Joseph Wright of Derby.png]]

Richard Gildart (1673 – 25 January 1770) was an English merchant from Liverpool who was engaged in the slave trade. He was Mayor of Liverpool three times, 1714, 1731, 1736 and Member of Parliament for Liverpool from 1734 to 1754.{{cite web |title=Richard Gildart, 1768. |url=https://www.histopic.co.uk/index.php?_route_=product/product&product_id=61 |website=www.histopic.co.uk |publisher=Histopic |access-date=13 August 2021}}

Richard was the son of James Geldart and Elizabeth Sweeting of Middleham, Yorkshire. He moved to Liverpool in the 1690s, becoming a freeman of Liverpool Corporation on November 2, 1697. About 1707 he married Ann Johnson, daughter of Thomas Johnson (1664-1729), a prominent Liverpool businessman involved in the tobacco trade.{{cite book |last1=Gildart |first1=Charles R. |title=The Gildart-Geldart Families |publisher=Charles Gildart |location=Seeking my Roots |url=https://www.seekingmyroots.com/members/files/G002746.pdf}}

He was a founding member of the African Company of Merchants in 1752, and also was elected to their executive committee in 1758.{{cite journal |title=The Political State of Europe etc. |journal=The Universal Magazine of Knowledge and Pleasure |date=1758 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sfMRAAAAYAAJ |publisher=Published ... according to Act of Parliament, for John Hinton |language=en}}