Richard Lichfield

Richard Lichfield (died 1630) was a barber surgeon in Cambridge, England, during the late 16th and early 17th century.

In 1597 he wrote a pamphlet[1] sharply criticising the writer Thomas Nashe, which for many years was believed to be the work of Gabriel Harvey.

Although not a member of the academic community Lichfield belonged to the property-owning middle class, and had a local reputation as a humorist.

[2] His humour took the form of parodies of learned speeches, complete with phony Latinisms, evidently a popular genre at Cambridge and one in which other barbers are also said to have excelled.

Lichfield's pamphlet is interesting to literary historians because it gives some biographical details on Nashe which would otherwise not be known, and makes a glancing reference to the rising Cambridge satirist, Joseph Hall.