Character
Often referred to as "The General" on the cricket field, Nyren seems to have been known among his familiars as Dick. He was "a very stout man" who was about five feet nine inches tall, but was "uncommonly active". He kept himself fit during the winter by "(devoting) much time to hunting, shooting and fishing".
Writing of his father, John Nyren says he "never saw a finer specimen of the thoroughbred old English yeoman than Richard Nyren", who was "a good face-to-face, unflinching, uncompromising, independent man". Nyren's response to Powlett and Dehaney in 1775 is consistent with this description. He would stand his ground even when disagreement arose with such luminaries as the major patrons John Frederick Sackville, 3rd Duke of Dorset, and Sir Horatio Mann. On one occasion, when Nyren had been proved right, Mann "crossed the ground and (shook) him heartily by the hand". Although, as Underdown points out, the Duke perhaps did not.
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