Roger Wilbraham

Sir Roger Wilbraham (4 November 1553 – 31 July 1616) was a prominent English lawyer who served as Solicitor-General for Ireland under Elizabeth I and was judged one of her few really competent Law Officers.

He bought an estate at Dorfold in the parish of Acton, near his birthplace of Nantwich in Cheshire, and he was active in charitable works locally, including founding two sets of almshouses for impoverished men.

[2][3] His father Richard served as Master of the Jewel House to Mary I and also collected revenues for the queen in the Nantwich Hundred.

Wilbraham himself undoubtedly gave good service to the Crown: in 1597 the Privy Council of Ireland, in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil lamenting the inefficiency of the Irish law officers (especially the recently deceased King's Serjeant, Arthur Corye), exempted Wilbraham from their criticisms, as "he hath taken more care and pains than all the rest".

[6] The Dublin government appears to have ignored the complaint, no doubt because of its firm belief, expressed forcefully in its letter to Cecil the same year, that Wilbraham was the only one of the law officers who did his job efficiently.

[6] In 1590-3, when the Attorney-General for Ireland, Sir Charles Calthorpe, was suspended from duty, Wilbraham coped efficiently with his double workload.

In his journal, he commented acerbically on the added burden of work which followed James' accession, due to the flood of requests for favours.

[1][3] He died on 31 July 1616 at Monken Hadley, Middlesex (now in the London Borough of Barnet), of "an Ague",[1][7] an acute fever, most likely malaria.

[7] A wall monument by Nicholas Stone commemorating Wilbraham and his family was erected in the Church of St Mary the Virgin, Monken Hadley in 1616, at a cost of £80.