Richard Warner (1763–1857) was an English clergyman and writer of a considerable number of topographical books based on his walks and his interest in antiquarianism.
His father, also Richard Warner, was a respectable London tradesman who owned the Two Civet Cats & Olive Tree, an Italian warehouse or delicatessen shop in fashionable New Bond Street.
[2] His early education was undertaken by a Scottish nanny, but at the age of five he was separated from his happy home life and sent to a boarding school located closer to the centre of London.
His removal from this unhappy environment came in about 1775 when his father retired and moved his family to the sedate town of Lymington on the south coast.
There Warner was educated at Christchurch Grammar School, which was housed in a chamber high above the Lady chapel of the ancient Priory church.
From his elevated classroom the schoolboy Warner more than once witnessed large gangs of smugglers landing their contraband on nearby Hengistbury Head in broad daylight.
Warner had, however, left Oxford without graduating, and there was a diversion: with the support of Warren Hastings, he was ordained by William Markham, Archbishop of York at Bishopthorpe, as from Magdalen Hall.
Warner obtained his first position as a minister at All Saints in Bath in 1794 and after only a year he moved on to the nearby St James' Church.
[1] In August 1796 Warner went on holiday to Wales, walking an average 26 miles a day, and recorded his travels in letters that were later published.
[7] Losh was a friend, while Wordsworth collected travel writing in the picturesque register, including works by Gilpin and Warner.
[15][16] In 1814 Warner started a fortnightly periodical, Omnium (the) Gatherum; or, Bath, Bristol, and Cheltenham literary repository, edited anonymously with Joseph Hunter.