Legh Richmond (1772–1827), English divine, was born on the 29th of January 1772, in Liverpool. He was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge,[1] 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 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 the 5th of May 1827. 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 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).[2]
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.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.