Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hugh Royds Brocklebank was the nephew of Ralph Brocklebank of Haughton Hall, Taporley, Cheshire. The family fortune was based on shipping at Whitehaven and banking. He graduated from Magdalen College, Oxford and became a considerable collector of paintings, prints and Iznik pottery, as his father, Ralph had been.His collection included eight paintings by or ascribed to Richard Wilson. These were bequeathed to Magdalen College in 1965:
P94A The Convent on the Rock
P101A Ascribed to Wilson, Lake Nemi
P105B View on the Strada Nomentana - II
P122E Lake Avernus - I
P130 Cilgerran Castle
P137C Studio of Wilson, The Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli
P138E Studio of Wilson, The West Belvedere at Hadrian's Villa, Tivoli
P197A A View on the River Po near Ferrara
The first seven of these were recorded at length by Brocklebank in A Turn or two I'll walk to still my beating Mind, published by the Cresset Press in 1955.
