Richard Bancroft (1544 – 2 November 1610) was an English churchman, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1604 to 1610 and "chief overseer" of the King James Bible.

Bancroft was born in September 1544 at Farnworth, now part of Widnes, Cheshire, second son of John Bancroft, and his wife Mary. His mother was the daughter of James Curwen and niece to Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin from 1555 to 1567, then Bishop of Oxford until his death in November 1568.^[1]

He was initially educated at the local grammar school, founded by bishop William Smyth, also from Farnworth.^[2] He became a scholar of Christ's College, Cambridge in 1563, and graduated BA in 1567, MA in 1570 (at Jesus College, Cambridge), DD 1585.^[3]

He was older than most students, reportedly due to money problems, and apparently more successful at sports than study; in 1564, his uncle Hugh obtained a sinecure for him at St Patrick's, Dublin.^[4] Ordained about that time, he was named chaplain to Richard Cox, then bishop of Ely, and in 1575 was presented to the rectory of Teversham in Cambridgeshire. The next year he was one of the preachers to the university.

In 1584 he was made rector of St Andrew, Holborn. In 1585 he was appointed treasurer of St Paul's Cathedral, London, and in 1586 was made a member of the ecclesiastical commission. On 9 February 1589 he preached at Paul's Cross a sermon, the substance of which was a passionate attack on the Puritans. He described their speeches and proceedings, caricatured their motives, denounced the exercise of the right of private judgment, and set forth the divine right of bishops in such strong language that Sir Francis Knollys, the Puritanically inclined Treasurer to the Household, held it to amount to a threat against the supremacy of the crown.^[5]

In the following year Bancroft was made a prebendary of St Paul's; he had been canon of Westminster since 1587. He was chaplain successively to Lord Chancellor Hatton and Archbishop Whitgift. In June 1597, he was consecrated Bishop of London; and from this time, in consequence of the age and incapacity for business of Archbishop Whitgift, he was virtually invested with the power of primate, and had the sole management of ecclesiastical affairs. Among the more noteworthy cases which fell under his direction were the proceedings against "Martin Marprelate", Thomas Cartwright and his friends, and John Penry, whose "seditious writings" he caused to be intercepted and given up to the Lord Keeper.

In 1600 he was sent on an embassy, with others, to Emden, for the purpose of settling certain matters in dispute between the English and the Danes. This mission, however, failed. Bancroft was present at the death of Queen Elizabeth.

In 2016, during the refurbishment of the Garden Museum,^[7] which is housed at the medieval church of St Mary-at-Lambeth,^[8] 30 lead coffins were found; one with an archbishop's red and gold mitre on top of it.^[9][10] On one of these coffins, a metal plate served to identify it as being that of Bancroft.^[11]

• John Bancroft, his nephew and Master of University College, Oxford
• Hugh Curwen, Archbishop of Dublin 1555 to 1567, Bishop of Oxford 1567 to 1568