Richard Lawrence (burgess)

Richard Lawrence (before 1640 – after December 1676) was an Oxford University graduate who emigrated to the Virginia colony where after various real estate speculations, he married a wealthy widow and became a tavernkeeper in Jamestown. Lawrence became one of Nathaniel Bacon's closest confidantes during Bacon's Rebellion and briefly served in the House of Burgesses during that conflict, after which he vanished with two other men otherwise likely to have been sentenced to death for treason.

Complicating matters, another man of the same name represented Lower Norfolk County as a burgess between 1671 and 1674, and died in 1681 (and had his will admitted to probate), but no relationship between them has been established. That William Lawrence and Lemuel Mason had succeeded William Carver (who was executed during Bacon's Rebellion) and Adam Thoroughgood Jr. as burgesses representing Lower Norfolk County.