Francis Barchard

Francis Barchard (1796–1856) was an English dyer who became a landowner in Sussex and served as High Sheriff of Sussex.

Baptised on 21 August 1796 at the church of All Saints in Little Bookham, he was the son of Joseph Barchard and his wife Jane Royle. The family business was dyeing, which made both him and his elder brother Joseph Henry Barchard (1777–1852) prosperous. His brother's wife Elizabeth (1775–1872) was sister to another rich dyer Francis Hilton (1756–1845), who was godfather to Francis Barchard and in his will proved in 1845 left his godson approximately 200,000 pounds (worth at least 18 million pounds in 2014).

In 1849 Francis bought the estate of Horsted Place and hired the architect Samuel Daukes to build the present Gothic house, in which his family continued to live until 1962. In 1853 he was chosen to be High Sheriff of Sussex. His will was proved in London on 16 April 1856

On 28 October 1824 in the church of St George, Bloomsbury, then in Middlesex, he married Margaret Jane, daughter of Elphinstone Piggott, a Chief Justice of Tobago. Their eldest son Francis Barchard (1826–1904) married Arentina Watson (1825–1909), whose elder sister Jane was the second wife of George Kirwan Carr Lloyd.