Legh Richmond

Legh Richmond (1772–1827), English divine, was born on 29 January 1772, in Liverpool. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge, and in 1798 was appointed to the joint curacies of St. Mary's Church, Brading and St. John the Baptist Church, Yaverland on the Isle of Wight. He was powerfully influenced by William Wilberforce's Practical View of Christianity, and took a prominent interest in the British and Foreign Bible Society, the Church Missionary Society, the London Society for Promoting Christianity amongst the Jews and similar institutions.

In 1805 he became assistant-chaplain to the Lock Hospital, London, and rector of Turvey, Bedfordshire, where he remained till his death on 5 May 1827. In 1814 he was appointed chaplain to Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (1767-1820) father of Queen Victoria.

It was in Turvey that he began to write stories based on material he had collected while living in the Isle of Wight. These were simple tales about country folk. The Dairyman's Daughter was the first published followed by The Young Cottager and The Negro Servant. All were originally published in the Christian Guardian between 1809-1814.

The best known of his writings is The Dairyman's Daughter, of which as many as four millions in nineteen languages were circulated before 1849. A collected edition of his stories of village life was first published by the Religious Tract Society in 1814 under the title of Annals of the Poor.

He also edited a series of Reformation theological works, with biographies, in eight volumes called Fathers of the English Church (1807–12).

Sixteen years after Richmond’s death, the prolific engraver George Brannon published a supplement to Annals of the Poor under the title The Landscape Beauties of the Isle of Wight (1843).

Richmond was one of the first clergymen to found a village Friendly Society. The Turvey Friendly Society was formed to give wages to the poor when they were sick and could not work.

He is thought to have originated the now globally popular idea of using boards with movable numbers to indicate hymn numbers during church services, whilst at Brading.

Further details of his life are to be found in the Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Volume 48, which is available in full from Wikisource at [1].

Works

These lists have been condensed from the results of searching in library holdings.

Tracts

• The Dairyman's Daughter
• The history of little Jane, the young cottager
• The Negro servant
• A Visit to the Infirmary
• The history of Mary Watson & Jenny Mortimer, two Sunday-School girls : founded on facts
• The African widow; being the history of a poor black woman : showing how she grieved for the death of her child, and the consequences of her doing so.
• Annals of the Poor, 1814
• The Orphan (for a juvenile audience)

Other

• Memoir of Miss Hannah Sinclair, (eldest daughter of the Right Hon. Sir John Sinclair, bart.) who died, May 22, 1818.
• Walk circumspectly; or, Rules for Christian Conduct
• Is the 'doctrinal, practical, experimental' system of the Rev. Legh Richmond, the 'true, Scriptural, Evangelical Religion,' as it professes to be, while all others are mere imitations and assumptions of that title?. (London, 1829)

Books

• The fathers of the English church : or, A selection from the writings of the reformers and early protestant divines of the Church of England (series edited by Legh Richmond)

Sermons

• A Sermon [on Luke xiii. 3] preached in the Parish Church of Brading ... on February 27, 1799, being the Day appointed for a General Fast.
• A Sermon [on Gen. i. 26] on the sin of cruelty towards the brute creation; preached ... February 15, 1801.
• A Sermon [on John xxi. 16] preached at the Parish Church of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe and St. Anne, Blackfriars, on Tuesday in Whitsun week, May 23, 1809, before the Society for Missions to Africa and the East, instituted by members of the Established Church, being their ninth anniversary.
• Reflections, suggested by the close of the year : being a sermon preached at Brading in the Isle of Wight, on the last Sunday of the year.

Letters

The following items are also listed in WorldCat.

• Letter from Legh Richmond to Samuel Hope (1815)
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Thomas Burgess (1816)
• 2 letters from Legh Richmond to William Wilberforce (1803,1804)
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Samuel Whitbread (1814)
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Harris Cawes (1806)
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Lord Bolton (1803)
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Rev. S. Hillyard
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Rev. W. Renton (1825)
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Chauncy Hare Townshend
• Letter from Legh Richmond to Joseph John Gurney (1826)
• Autograph letter signed : Brading, Isle of Wight, to Hannah More, 1804 Jan. 17.
• Autograph letter signed : to Mr. Relfe, 1826 Feb. 6.
• Legh Richmond letters, 1807-1815
• The Rev. Legh Richmond's letters and counsels to his children, edited by his daughter Fanny Richmond, (1848)

• http://db.theclergydatabase.org.uk/jsp/persons/DisplayCcePerson.jsp?PersonID=75143
• Grimshawe, Thomas Shuttleworth, A memoir of the Rev. Legh Richmond, A.M., of Trinity College, Cambrige; Rector of Turvey, Bedfordshire; and chaplain to his Royal Highness the late Duke of Kent
• Contents at https://archive.org/stream/cyclopaediabibl01darlgoog#page/n483/mode/1up
• Brannon, George, on Island Eye
• Brannon, George. The Landscape Beauties of the Isle of Wight, as Described by L. Richmond (in His Celebrated "Annals of the Poor"). Illustrated with engravings of some of the principal objects, explanatory notes and such other additional information as are necessary to constitute a brief local guide. Wootton Common: George Brannon, 1843.
• http://virtual-library.culturalservices.net/webingres/bedfordshire/vlib/0.digitised_resources/turvey_digitisation_people_richmond_article.htm
• Identified as Jane Squibb in some editions.
• Amplified title: The miseries of surrounding nations an awful warning to Britain
• This collection consists of three letters. Two letters are from 1807 and are addressed to a Reverend Aspland in Cambridge, who appears to be a librarian. In the first letter, dated 20 July 1807, Richmond tells Aspland that a Dr. Jowet has advised him to borrow several books from the library. He refers to works by several men, calling them martyrs. The second letter from Richmond to Aspland is dated 21 October 1807 (from WorldCat record).
• Selected from his memoir and "Domestic portraiture" ; with an account of the closing scene of his life.