Leyton Price Richards (12 March 1879 – 22 August 1948) was an English Congregational minister and prominent pacifist.
Early life Born in Ecclesall, Sheffield, in March 1879, Richards was a younger son of Charles Richards, a master clothier who in 1881 was employing 23 men there.“Leyton Price Richards” in England & Wales, Civil Registration Birth Index, 1837—1915; 1881 United Kingdom census, 3, Park Crescent, Ecclesall, ancestry.co.uk, accessed 11 March 2022 After leaving school, he was educated at the University of Glasgow, where he graduated MA in 1903. He then trained as a Congregational minister.“Richards, Leyton Price” in Harold Josephson, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985)
Career Richards ministered for some years in Aberdeenshire, then about 1911 migrated briefly to Melbourne, Australia, where he had concerns about the workings of the Australian Defence Act 1910.Martin Ceadel, Semi-detached Idealists: The British Peace Movement, p. 213
Returning to England, he was minister at Bowdon, Greater Manchester, until 1916, when he resigned after protesting against the Military Service Act 1916 and being fined £100.Jeffrey Gros, John D. Rempel, The Fragmentation of the Church and its Unity in Peacemaking (2001), p. 122 He was next appointed as Warden of the Quaker College at Woodbrooke.Stephen Parker, Faith on the Home Front: Aspects of Church Life and Popular Religion in Birmingham, 1939–1945 (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2005), p. 193
From 1924, Richards was minister of the Carr’s Lane Congregational Church in Birmingham. He retired in 1939 on the grounds of poor health.
No-Conscription Fellowship The No-Conscription Fellowship was a pacifist organization founded in London on 27 November 1914 by Fenner Brockway and Clifford Allen, after the First World War had failed to reach an early conclusion. It campaigned against the Military Service Act 1916 which introduced conscription.“No-Conscription Fellowship” in World War I: A Student Encyclopedia, vol. I (ABC-CLIO, 2005, ), pp. 1339–1340
Richards became a member of the Fellowship and joined its National Committee, with Clifford Allen, Fenner Brockway, Alfred Salter, Aylmer Rose, Bertrand Russell, C. H. Norman, Catherine Marshall, Edward Grubb, John P. Fletcher, Morgan Jones, Will Chamberlain, and A. Barratt Brown.
Later work In 1925, Richards made a tour lasting three months of the United States, in the interests of better international understanding, speaking from many well-known pulpits on Sundays, and during the week speaking about world peace to various schools and societies throughout the US. In March he spoke at the Phillips Brooks House in Harvard Yard on behalf of the Fellowship of Youth for Peace, a recently founded nationwide body.PROMINENT PACIFIST TO ADDRESS LIBERAL CLUB TO DISCUSS WAR FROM CHRISTIAN POINT OF VIEW, The Harvard Crimson, March 17, 1925
He went on to write several books on Christian pacifism.
Personal life In 1907, at Whitby, Richards married Edith Ryley Pearson.“Leyton Price Richards” in England & Wales, Civil Registration Marriage Index, 1837–1915, ancestry.com, accessed 14 December 2021 Their daughter Margaret Richards (1910—1996) was born in Peterhead, Aberdeenshire. In January 1912, a second daughter Dorothy Joyce Richards was born while Richards and his family were living in Hawthorn, Victoria.”Births” in The Age (Melbourne, Australia), 30 January 1912, p. 1, col. 1 A third daughter Carola Richards was born in 1916 in Salford, Manchester.
Richards died at his house in Mortimer Common, near Reading, on 22 August 1948.”The Rev. Leyton Richards” (obituary) in Land & Liberty, September and October 1948, p. 181 He left an estate valued at £8,755, and a widow, Edith Ryley Richards.“RICHARDS Leyton Price of Woodview Windmill-road Mortimer Common Berkshire” in Wills and Administrations (England & Wales) 1948 (1949), p. 695 She moved to Betchworth, Surrey, where she died in 1963.“RICHARDS Edith Ryley of 2 Morden Grange Betchworth Surrey” in Wills and Administrations (England & Wales) 1963 (1964), p. 194
Selected publications The Christian's Contribution to Peace (1935) The Christian's Alternative to War (1935) Realistic Pacifism: the Ethics of War and the Politics of Peace (Chicago and New York: Willett, Clark & Co., 1935) Conscription and Christian Obligations (1947) Christian pacifism after two world wars (1948) Kirisutokyō hisen heiwa shugi (Tokyo: Shinkyō Shuppansha, 1952) (in Japanese)
Notes
Further reading Edith Ryley Pearson Richards, Private view of a public man; the life of Leyton Richards (London: Allen and Unwin, 1950) “Richards, Leyton Price” in Harold Josephson, Biographical Dictionary of Modern Peace Leaders (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1985)
External links , Virtual International Authority File, Leyton Richards