Richard William Church

Richard William was the eldest of three sons of John Dearman Church, a wine merchant, and his wife Bromley Caroline Metzener (died 1845).

[3] From 1844 to 1845, Church was a junior proctor, and in that capacity and in concert with his senior colleague, vetoed a proposal to censure Tracts publicly.

After again holding the tutorship of Oriel, he accepted in 1858 the small living of Whatley in Somerset near Frome and was married the following year.

[3] In 1869, Church declined a canonry at Worcester, but in 1871 accepted reluctantly (calling it "a sacrifice en pure perte"), the deanery of St Paul's, to which he was nominated by W. E.

[3] There his task was complicated:[3] Church intended on his appointment "that St Paul's should waken up from its long slumber".

[3] The first year he spent there, writes one of his friends, was one of "misery" for a man who loved study and hated pomp and business.

He appeared for the last time in public at the funeral of Henry Parry Liddon on 9 September 1890, dying on 9 December in the same year, at Dover.

He stated that he had never studied style as such, but had acquired it by the exercise of translation from classical languages, and that he took care in his choice of verbs rather than in his use of adjectives.