Men of the Time, eleventh edition/Alford, Charles Richard
ALFORD, The Right Rev. Charles Richard, D.D., formerly Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, was born in 1816 at West Quantoxhead, Somersetshire, of which parish his father was rector. From St. Paul's School he was sent to Trinity College, Cambridge (B.A., 1839; M.A., 1842; D.D., 1867). After taking orders he became Incumbent of St. Matthew's, Rugby, in 1841; Incumbent of Christ Church, Doncaster, in 1846; Principal of the Metropolitan Training Institution at Highbury, in 1854; and Incumbent of Holy Trinity, Islington, in 1865, where he had a high reputation as an Evangelical preacher. He was consecrated Bishop of Victoria, Hong Kong, Feb. 2, 1867, in place of Dr. George Smith, who had resigned that see in the previous year. He himself resigned the see of Victoria in 1872. He was vicar of Christ Church, Claughton, near Birkenhead, from June, 1874, till Sept. 1877, when he accepted the incumbency of the new district of St. Mary, Sevenoaks, Kent. In the winter of 1877 he acted for a few Sundays as Chaplain of Trinity Protestant Church, Rome, but resigned that post on finding that the Bishop of Gibraltar was unable to licence him to the chaplaincy, in consequence of the want of legally appointed trustees to the church. He was appointed Commissary of the diocese of Huron, Canada, in 1880. Dr. Alford is the author of "First Principles of the Oracles of God;" a "Charge" on China and Japan; and various sermons and pamphlets.