Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hibbs, Richard
HIBBS, RICHARD (1812?–1886), miscellaneous writer, born about 1812, studied at St. John's College, Cambridge (of which he was scholar), and proceeded B.A. in 1841 and M.A. in 1844. He took orders, and was curate at Corton, near Lowestoft (1843–8); teacher and preacher at Lowestoft (1848–1852); curate of St. Paul's, Covent Garden (1852); and assistant minister of St. John's Chapel, Edinburgh (1852–4). His connection with this last terminated somewhat suddenly. A bitter controversy with the incumbent led him to establish the New Church of England Chapel, St. Vincent Street, where he laboured for some years. He subsequently fulfilled the duties of British chaplain at Lisbon, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. He died at 13 St. Lawrence Road, North Kensington, on 26 March 1886. Hibbs's chief work, founded on personal investigation, is ‘Prussia and the Poor; or Observations upon the Systematised Relief of the Poor at Elberfeld in contrast with that of England,’ 1876; 4th ed. 1883. He also published, besides separate sermons: 1. ‘The Substance of a Series of Discourses on Baptism,’ 1848. 2. ‘God's Plea for the Poor,’ 1851. 3. ‘Scottish Episcopal Romanism; or Popery without a Pope, in reply to Bishop Wordsworth's “Theory and Practice of Christian Unity,”’ Edinburgh, 1856, 12mo. 4. ‘Truth Vindicated, or Some Account of the New Church of England Chapel in Edinburgh,’ 1858; 4th ed. 1859.
[Academy, 10 April 1886, pp. 255–6, Hibbs's Works; Brit. Mus. Cat.]