CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM English divine, son of John Dearman Church, brother of Sir Richard Church (q.v.), a merchant, was born at Lisbon on April 25, 1815, his early years being mostly spent at Florence. He went up to Wadham college, Oxford, in 1833, took first-class honours in 1836, and in 1838 was elected fellow of Oriel. He was appointed tutor of Oriel in 1839, and was ordained the same year. He was an intimate friend of J. H. Newman at this period, and closely allied to the Tractarian party. In 1841 No. 90 of Tracts for tile Times appeared, and Church resigned his tutorship. In he was junior proctor, and in that capacity, in concert with his senior colleague, vetoed a proposal to censure Tract 90 publicly. In 1846 Church, with others, started The Guardian newspaper, and he was an early contributor to The Saturday Review. He accepted in 1852 the small living of Whatley in Somersetshire, near Frome. In 1869 he refused a canonry at Worcester, but in 1871 he accepted, most reluctantly (calling it "a sacrifice en pure perte"), the deanery of St. Paul's, to which he was nominated by W. E. Gladstone. Dean Church died on Dec. 9, 189o.
His chief pub. works are a Life of St. Anselm (187o) ; the lives of Spenser (1879) and Bacon 0884) in Macmillan's "Men of Letters" series; an Essay on Dante (1878) ; The Oxford Movement (1891), together with many other vols. of essays and sermons. A coll. of his journalistic arts. was pub. in 1897 as Occasional Papers.
See Life and Letters of Dean Church, by his daughter, M. C. Church (1895) ; memoir by H. C. Beeching in Dict. Nat. Biog.; and D. C. Lathbury Dean Churck (1907) .