Author: Richards, John
Biography:
RICHARDS, John (c. 1756-92: ancestry.co.uk)
It is not known where he was born or baptised, nor who his parents were. The Landscape (1809) describes him as late vicar of Tetbury, Gloucester, and chaplain to the Earl of Pembroke. He was therefore the Rev. John Richards who died on 27 May 1792 and was buried at St. Mary’s, Tetbury, on 31 May. He had been presented to the living in 1786 and also served two churches in Weston Birt and Easton Grey. He was also master of the grammar school attached to Tetbury church. A newspaper report further identified him as late of Oriel College, Oxford. The Oriel registers do not record his father or his occupation and location. He entered Oriel as bible clerk or servitor on 1 Mar. 1776 (BA 1779, MA 1783). He was ordained deacon (1779) and priest (1780) in the established church. He married Elizabeth Thomas on 7 Aug. 1787 at her parish of Uley, Gloucester. They had two daughters: Elizabeth Frideswide (1788-1808) and Augusta Sophia Richards (later Salmon) (1789-1861). The volume is rare, with the only known copies at Yale and Wellesley. There do not appear to be any copies still in the United Kingdom although the Gloucester scholar and book-collector John Delafield Phelps (1764-1842) appears to have owned a copy. It contains many references to topographical sites and local personalities and is clearly a posthumous publication since a note refers to the poet Esther Lewis Clark (q.v.) who died at Tetbury in 1794. (ancestry.co.uk 2 June 2023; findmypast.co.uk 2 June 2023; CCEd 2 June 2023; Andy Barton, dursleyglos.org.uk; Gloucester Journal 3 May 1786; Bath Chronicle 31 May 1792; GM June 1792, 578; OUCH 29 August 1812; J. D. Phelps, Collectanea Glocestriensis [1842], 106; The Landscape [1809], 17n, 24n) AA