Who was St Richard?

Richard of Wych (so called from the place of his birth, the Worcestershire town of Droitwich) was born in 1197. Although left with little money, he studied hard and made a good impression on the authorities at Oxford, eventually becoming chancellor of the University. About 1235 he became chancellor of the diocese of Canterbury under his friend Archbishop Edmund Rich, and he went with the archbishop during his exile in France. When they returned, Richard became vicar of Deal.

In 1244 Richard was elected Bishop of Chichester. King Henry III wanted another man and refused to let Richard have the income of the see or to enter Chichester. Richard was forced to live simply in the parsonage of his friend Simon of Tarring. From here he travelled around his diocese, becoming known to his people and knowing them.

When Henry III was eventually forced to let the bishop have his rights, Richard entered Chichester and began reforming Church administration in the diocese. He was pious and accessible, strict with himself but loving to his flock, and he became their friend and hero. In 1253 he dedicated a chapel in Dover to the memory of his old friend, now St Edmund Rich, but shortly afterwards he died 3 April 1253.

On 16 June 1276, in the presence of King Edward I, Queen Eleanor, the Archbishop of Canterbury and a great crowd of people, St Richard's body was moved to a shrine behind the high altar of his cathedral, where it became a place of pilgrimage and prayer for the people of Sussex.

Under Henry VIII the shrine was destroyed, but during the last century Richard’s shrine has been restored as a place of pilgrimage and he himself has been restored to a proper place in the life of the Church he served so faithfully as bishop.