Without doubt a relative of Thomas Wythigg* of Oxford, Richard appears not to have held office in the borough after serving a single term as bailiff. A draper by trade, he resided in a messuage in the parish of All Saints that he rented from Thomas Dagvile*. There is no definite evidence for any other property he might have held, although it is possible he was a tenant of Osney abbey, whose abbot sued him for debt in 1438.
In each of his consecutive Parliaments Wythigg sat alongside Thomas Coventre I*, an extremely experienced parliamentarian to whom he must have looked for guidance. During that of 1429, their borough attempted to gain an exemption from the statute of 1406 that restricted apprenticeships to the children of twenty-shilling freeholders, on the grounds that it was harming its economy. The petition failed, but it is unlikely that Wythigg and Coventre were particularly to blame for this outcome since similar petitions that Oxford submitted to later Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign shared a like fate.
Following the Parliament, Wythigg and Coventre sought expenses of £27, equating to a daily wage of 2s. each for the 135 days they spent attending it and travelling between Oxford and Westminster. The Exchequer issued a writ in their favour for this amount, but the mayor and bailiffs of Oxford resisted their claim. They returned that in June 1423 the town had fixed the wages of its MPs at 1s. each per day, a rate to which, in any case, Wythigg and his colleague had previously agreed.
Wythigg lived for some years following the dissolution of his second Parliament in March 1431. He was still alive in September 1438, when he stood surety in the university chancellor’s court for Thomas Woller, rector of St. Peter le Bailey and principal of St. James’s Hall, but was certainly dead by July 1442.