Richards, Michael, 1673-1721 : Surveyor-General of the Ordnance.
Brigadier-General Michael Richards (1673-1721) was the son of Jacob Richards of Solsborough, County Wexford, Ireland. He was the brother of Colonel Jacob Richards ([1660]-1701), of Major-General John Richards (1669-1709), and of Elizabeth (d. 1711), wife of postmaster-general James Craggs the elder (1657-1721). With his brother Jacob, he was employed in the artillery train under Ginkell in Ireland in 1691. He received a lieutenant's commission in 1692 and saw service with the artillery train in Flanders, where he so distinguished himself that he was appointed to be the chief engineer of the train in the 1697 expedition to Newfoundland under Colonel Sir John Gibsone (1637-1717) and Captain Sir John Norris (ca. 1671-1749).
On 7 June 1697, he landed at St. John's, where he surveyed the harbour and, despite great difficulties, built the barracks and began work on the fort. He left Newfoundland with Gibsone in October 1697 but later returned, probably with Commodore Fairborne, in 1700 and was promoted captain on 1 September 1701. In the course of the next three years, he carried on the work of building a redoubt covering the entrance to the harbour. He returned to England in the autumn of 1703 with the squadron of Vice-Admiral John Graydon (d. 1726).
After leaving Newfoundland, Richards served successfully under the Duke of Marlborough in the Netherlands, 1704-1706. He was appointed Galway's chief engineer in Spain, 1707, and served in many of the great engagements of the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1711, he was promoted brigadier-general and appointed chief-engineer of Great Britain. On 19 November 1714, he was appointed Surveyor-General of the Ordnance. In 1716, at his instance and under his direction, the ordnance train was converted into a regiment (later, the royal artillery) independent of the king's engineers, while that corps was itself enlarged and reorganized. In 1720, he founded the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. He died, unmarried, on 5 February 1721.
