Richard William Church - Dean of St Paul's

Dean of St Paul's

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 WE Gladstone.

His task as dean was a complicated one. It was

1. the restoration of the cathedral;
2. the adjustment of the question of the cathedral revenues with the Ecclesiastical Commissioners;
3. the reorganization of a conservative cathedral staff with anomalous vested rights.

He described the intention of his appointment to be "that St Paul's should waken up from its long slumber." The first year that he spent at St Paul's was, writes one of his friends, one of "misery" for a man who loved study and hated pomp and business. But he worked tactfully. Though of unimpressive stature and monotonous, he had a strong influence. He was a High Churchman, but of a rational type, and with an enthusiasm for religious liberty. He said of the Church of England that there was "no more glorious church in Christendom than this inconsistent English Church." He was regarded in 1882 as a possible successor to Archbishop Tait, but his health made it out of the question. While Dean of St. Paul's, he was patron of Saint Martin's League for letter carriers.