Richard Copley Christie
Encyclopedia
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
lawyer, University teacher, philanthropist and bibliophile.
He was born at Lenton
Lenton, Nottingham
Lenton is an area of the City of Nottingham in the county of Nottinghamshire, England. Politically, it falls within the Nottingham South constituency. Most of the area lies within the electoral ward of "Dunkirk and Lenton", however the "Lenton Triangle" area, considered by most residents to be part...
in Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...
, the son of a mill owner. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College, Oxford
Lincoln College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. It is situated on Turl Street in central Oxford, backing onto Brasenose College and adjacent to Exeter College...
where he was tutored by Mark Pattison
Mark Pattison
Mark Pattison was an English author and a Church of England priest. He served as Rector of Lincoln College, Oxford.-Life:...
, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn
Lincoln's Inn
The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn. Although Lincoln's Inn is able to trace its official records beyond...
in 1857. He also held numerous academic appointments, notably the professorships of history (from 1854 to 1856) and of political economy
Political economy
Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...
(from 1855 to 1866) at Owens College. He always took an active interest in this college, of which he was one of the governors. In 1898 he gave the Christie Library building, designed by Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse
Alfred Waterhouse was a British architect, particularly associated with the Victorian Gothic Revival architecture. He is perhaps best known for his design for the Natural History Museum in London, and Manchester Town Hall, although he also built a wide variety of other buildings throughout the...
: the plan connected this on the east with the Whitworth Hall.
Philanthropy
Christie was a friend of the industrialist Sir Joseph WhitworthJoseph Whitworth
Sir Joseph Whitworth, 1st Baronet was an English engineer, entrepreneur, inventor and philanthropist. In 1841, he devised the British Standard Whitworth system, which created an accepted standard for screw threads...
. By Whitworth's will, Christie was appointed one of three legatees, each of whom was left more than half a million pounds for their own use, ‘they being each of them aware of the objects’ to which these funds would have been put by Whitworth. They chose to spend more than a fifth of the money on support for Owens College, together with the purchase of land now occupied by
the Manchester Royal Infirmary
Manchester Royal Infirmary
The Manchester Royal Infirmary is a hospital in Manchester, England which was founded by Charles White in 1752 as a cottage hospital capable of caring for twelve patients. Manchester Royal Infirmary is part of a larger NHS Trust incorporating several hospitals called Central Manchester University...
. In 1897, Christie personally assigned more than £50,000 for the erection of the Whitworth Hall
Whitworth Hall
The Whitworth Hall on Oxford Road and Burlington Street in Chorlton-on-Medlock, Manchester, England is part of the University of Manchester. It has been listed Grade II* since 18 December 1963. The Hall lies at the south-east range of the Old Quadrangle of the University, with the Manchester Museum...
, to complete the front quadrangle of Owens College. He was president of the Whitworth Institute from 1890 to 1895 and was much interested in the medical and other charities of Manchester, especially the Cancer Pavilion and Home, of whose committee he was chairman from 1890 to 1893, and which later became the Christie Hospital
Christie Hospital
The Christie NHS Foundation Trust is located in Withington, Manchester, and is one of the largest cancer treatment centres in Europe. The Christie became a NHS Foundation Trust in April 2007 and is also an international leader in cancer research and development, and home to the Paterson Institute...
. In October 1893 the freedom of the city of Manchester was conferred upon him and on his surviving fellow legatee, R. D. Darbishire.
Christie Cup The University of Manchester competes annually in 28 different sports against Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
and Liverpool
University of Liverpool
The University of Liverpool is a teaching and research university in the city of Liverpool, England. It is a member of the Russell Group of large research-intensive universities and the N8 Group for research collaboration. Founded in 1881 , it is also one of the six original "red brick" civic...
universities in the Christie Cup, which Manchester had won for five consecutive years until 2011 where the University of Leeds
University of Leeds
The University of Leeds is a British Redbrick university located in the city of Leeds, West Yorkshire, England...
won the competition on home soil. The university has also achieved considerable success in the BUCS (British University & College Sports) competitions. It is currently positioned in 10th place in the overall BUSA rankings for 2007/08 The Cup is an inter-university competition between Liverpool, Leeds and Manchester in numerous sports since 1886. After the well-known rivalry between Oxford and Cambridge, the Christie's Championships is the oldest inter–university competition on the sporting calendar: the cup was a benefaction of Richard Copley Christie.
Chancellor of the diocese
From 1872 to 1894, Christie was ChancellorDiocesan chancery
A diocesan chancery is the branch of administration which handles all written documents used in the official government of a Roman Catholic or Anglican diocese....
of the Anglican Diocese of Manchester
Anglican Diocese of Manchester
The Diocese of Manchester is a Church of England diocese in the Province of York, England. Based in the city of Manchester, the diocese covers much of the county of Greater Manchester and small areas of the counties of Lancashire and Cheshire.-History:...
. In that capacity, he advised Bishop of Manchester
Bishop of Manchester
The Bishop of Manchester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Manchester in the Province of York.The current bishop is the Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, the 11th Lord Bishop of Manchester, who signs Nigel Manchester. The bishop's official residence is Bishopscourt, Bury New Road,...
James Fraser
James Fraser (bishop)
James Fraser was a reforming Anglican bishop of Manchester, England. An able Church administrator and policy leader, he was active in developing the Church's approach to education and in practical politics and industrial relations...
on the matters that led to the imprisonment of the Rev. Sidney Faithorn Green
Sidney Faithorn Green
The Rev. Sidney Faithorn Green was a British clergyman who, during the Ritualist controversies in the Church of England, was imprisoned for 20 months for liturgical practice contrary to the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874.-Background:...
under the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874
Public Worship Regulation Act 1874
The Public Worship Regulation Act 1874 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, introduced as a Private Member's Bill by Archbishop of Canterbury Archibald Campbell Tait, to limit what he perceived as the growing ritualism of Anglo-Catholicism and the Oxford Movement within the Church...
.
Bibliophily
Christie was an enthusiastic book collector, and bequeathed to Owens College his library of about 15,000 volumes, rich in a very complete set of the books printed by Étienne DoletÉtienne Dolet
Étienne Dolet was a French scholar, translator and printer.-Early life:He was born in Orléans. A doubtful tradition makes him the illegitimate son of Francis I; but it is evident that he was at least connected with some family of rank and wealth.From Orléans he was taken to Paris about 1521, and...
, a series of Aldine Press
Aldine Press
Aldine Press was the printing office started by Aldus Manutius in 1494 in Venice, from which were issued the celebrated Aldine editions of the classics . The Aldine Press is famous in the history of typography, among other things, for the introduction of italics...
publications, and of volumes printed by Sebastian Gryphius and other European humanists. His Étienne Dolet, the Martyr of the Renaissance (1880) is the most exhaustive work on the subject. He died at Ribsden in Surrey after a long period of illness: the book collection has always been separate from the general stock of the library of Manchester University and was transferred to the John Rylands Library
John Rylands Library
The John Rylands Library is a Victorian Gothic building on Deansgate in Manchester, England. The library, which opened to the public in 1900, was founded by Mrs Enriqueta Augustina Rylands in memory of her late husband, John Rylands...
building in Deansgate in 1972. A printed catalogue was issued in 1915 by the librarian, Charles Leigh. A stained glass window commemorates him on the staircase of the Christie Library.