Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol II (1901).djvu/18

 took special interest in its work. His own library, of about 75,000 volumes, destined for Owens College, remained to the last the object of his affectionate solicitude. Of its choicer portions, arranged according to printers, the most notable was the collection, unequalled as to completeness, of the issues of Dolet's press; it also contained a large number of Aldines, about six hundred volumes printed by Sebastian Gryphius of Lyons, on whom he contemplated writing, and was rich in bibliographical works. It also included an unrivalled series of editions of Horace, to acquire which had been one of the amusements of Christie's life; and a large and in some respects exceptional choice of Renaissance literature, more especially of the productions of French writers and scholars of the period, and of Erasmiana. Christie's knowledge of his own books was both close and full; he was at the same time remarkably liberal in allowing the use of his treasures to others, and to the last ready to place the resources of his knowledge at the service of those engaged in literary composition or inquiry.

In October 1899 the freedom of the city of Manchester was conferred upon him and his surviving fellow legatee under Sir Joseph Whitworth's will, Mr. R. D. Darbishire. Ill-health prevented Christie's attendance on the occasion, and the lord mayor and town clerk of Manchester subsequently travelled to Ribsden in order to enable him to sign the roll. During the last two years of his life he was virtually confined to his couch. He bore the trial of a painful and incurable illness with an unaffected composure which it was impossible to witness without admiration, and his mind remained perfectly unclouded. He died at Ribsden on 9 Jan. 1901, and his remains, after cremation at Woking, were buried in the churchyard of Valley End, near Sunningdale. His wife survived him. By his will he left his collection of books to the Owens College, with ample provision for the maintenance of the Christie Library there. He also left legacies to the Royal Holloway College for the foundation of a scholarship and prizes, to the Library Association of the United Kingdom, and to various medical and other charities.

A portrait of Christie by Mr. T. B. Kennington is in the Christie Library at the Owens College, Manchester, where it was placed by his friends shortly before his death.



CHURCH, RICHARD WILLIAM (1815–1890), dean of St. Paul's, born at Lisbon on 25 April 1815, was eldest of three sons of John Dearman Church, a merchant, by his wife Bromley Caroline Metzener, and grandson of Matthew Church, a member of the Society of Friends, whose second son was General Sir [q. v.] J. D. Church was baptised a member of the English church at the time of his marriage in 1814. His other children were Bromley, who entered the merchant service and died at sea in 1852, and Charles, born in 1822, now (1901) canon residentiary of Wells.

In 1818 the family settled in Florence, and at eleven years old Richard went to a, preparatory school at Leghorn, where he and his brother learnt to love the sea and everything connected with it. The life in Italy, which was to have a permanent influence on Church's tastes, came to an end in 1828 by his father's sudden death, and the family returned to England and settled in Bath. After a term at a school in Exeter Richard was sent to Redland, near Bristol, where he spent the next five years, working hard at his classics and becoming imbued with the evangelical principles of the place, and in spare moments haunting the old bookshops in Bristol. When the time came for him to go to Oxford, at Easter 1833, he was sent to Wadham because the tutors there were reputed evangelical. His introduction to the other school of religious thought came partly from 'The Christian Year,' published in 1827, and partly through his mother's second marriage at this time with a widower, Thomas Crokat of Leghorn, whose daughter, Mary, married the next year [q. v.], at that time fellow and tutor of Balliol. To an undergraduate of a shy temper, with no public school or university connections, the friendship of so distinguished a man as Moberly was of great social value, while intellectually it counteracted the narrowing influence of Redland. [q. v.] also seems to have taken him up, and in 1835 he was introduced at Oriel to Keble and Newman. But he did not see much of the leaders of the Oxford movement until at the end of 1836 he graduated B.A., coming out, much to his own astonishment, in the first class. For the next eighteen months he read hard for an Oriel fellowship, to which he was elected in 1838. Among the theological writers read in the meantime he notes especially Bishop Butler and F. D. Maurice; but he became at this time more definitely a disciple of Newman, attending regularly at the afternoon sermons at St. Mary's. The sermon on 'Ventures of Faith,'