William Westley Richards (24 November 1789 – January–March 1865) was a British firearms manufacturer.

Richards was born in Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 to Theophilus Richards and Mary Bingham.
He married his first wife, Ann Barlow in 1813. They had six children: Westley, Emma, Caroline, Edward Harding, Ellen, and Mary Anne.. William and Ann divorced before 1823.

He married his second wife, Harriett Seale (1793–1865) on 18 January 1823 at Old Church in St. Pancras, London. He had three children by his second marriage, Charles, George Seale, and William.

William died between January and March 1865 in Birmingham, Warwickshire, England.

In 1812 he established a gunmaking business

Westley Richards

Westley Richards is one of the oldest surviving traditional English gunmakers. It was founded in 1812 by William Westley Richards. Their inventions included the Anson & Deeley boxlock action and the Droplock, which equals in status James Purdey's self opening and Holland & Holland's removable...

http://www.westleyrichards.com/firm/history3.html in Birmingham, which bears his name and still exists today.