Richard [Kent] Sergeant 1813 - 1872 was born in Hindley, near Wigan. In 1838 he was a grocer in Wigan, in 1851 a corn dealer, and by 1861 a corn dealer at 125 St Domingo Road, Everton. He died there in 1872 with an estate of less than £300.

• 1845 (Leed Intelligencer 11/10/1845) list shows him to on the provisional committee of 'Keighley, Halifax and Huddersfield Junction Railway'.

• 1848 (Manchester Times 1/4/1848) Richard Sergeant appointed 'overseer'  in Wigan

• 1848 (Manchester Courier 18/10/1848) he was fined 2s 6d for placing sacks of beans etc on the public streets. Defendant said the were within the limits of his warehouse steps, and after quoting from the usages of the period of Edward the First, and the time of the fortification of Wigan, to more recent usage, contended that the court had no precedent whereon to convict him for the offence in an able and learned address to the magistrates. The court said they had already decided what was public right in these cases.

• 1857 (Liverpool Mercury 2/11/1857) court case: Sergeant v Hayes: This was an action to recover the sum of £11 12s 6d, the price of five barrels of flour which were sold be the plaintiff to the defendant, at 46s 6d per barrel in December 1855. ...The plaintiff was Richard Sergeant, a corn and flour dealer of this town, and the defendant was Margaret Hayes, a baker and flour dealer at Warrington. The plaintiff stated that he sold the flour by sample, and that it was delivered in due course. Forthe defence, it was denied that there was any sample produced when the sale was effected; that this plaintiff represented that the flour was superior in quality to a former parcel which he had sold to the defendant; but it proved to be very much inferior, the defendant being compelled to sell the bread made from it at 1d per lb. whilst she sold bread from a lower-priced flour at 2 1/2 d per lb. She also stated that she complained to the plaitiff of the flour immediately after it was delivered; and that subsequent to that the paintiff wished her to sign a document stating that the flour was unfit for human food, as he was going to have a lawsuit respecting it with the person from whom he had purchased it; but she excused herself, on the ground that she did not wish the inconvenience of attending a court as a witness, upon which he laughed, and told her she was not going to sign her life away. The jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff - damages £4.

His parents were Richard Sargent (b.1784), a farmer from Hindley and Jane Horrocks, daughter of a Hindley weaver, William. Richard's father John Segeant (b.1756) was a weaver in 1784. He married in 1783 in Wigan Jane Foster from Langtree.

John's father was James b 1732 Wigan, his mother Ellen Sumner d. 1806 Hindley. They married in Wigan in 1754.

James's father, John, may possibly have come from London to set up as a weaver.