there was another candidate in the field (Y Traethodydd for October 1865). In the general election of 1868 he was, however, elected, by a majority of over four thousand, senior member for the Merthyr boroughs, which had been granted an additional seat by the Reform Act of 1867. This seat he retained till his death, his majorities, whenever there was a contest, being overwhelming, and his expenses being always paid by his constituents. Among services to his own constituents, he organised, with Lord Aberdare, a fund which reached about 5,000l. to relieve the South Wales miners during a ‘lock out’ in 1878, and in 1881 he presided at a National Eisteddfod held at Merthyr.
From the first he was regarded as ‘the member for Wales.’ His maiden speech, delivered on 22 March 1869, in support of the second reading of the Irish Church Bill, made a good impression. Later he helped to expose the action of Welsh landowners in evicting tenants who had declined to vote with them at the previous election (Parl. Paper, No. 352 of 1869). This exposure aided materially in the passing of the Ballot Act, 1871, which Richard supported. When W. E. Forster's Education Bill was before the house in 1870, Richard, who had reluctantly accepted the principle of state aid in education, opposed ‘the conscience clause compromise,’ and proposed that ‘the religious instruction should be supplied by voluntary effort and not out of the public funds.’ His final protest against the third reading of the bill (11 July) was bitter and sarcastic, and he subsequently made repeated attempts to get rid of the clauses which were considered obnoxious to nonconformists. A strenuous opponent of the connection of church and state, he seconded on 9 May 1871 Edward Miall's motion for the disestablishment of the British churches, and in subsequent years endeavoured (without success) to introduce a similar motion himself. He took part in many bitter discussions of the burials question, and, being dissatisfied with the Burials Act of 1880, unsuccessfully introduced in 1883 and 1884 an amending cemeteries bill. In 1885, with Mr. J. Carvell Williams, he wrote for the ‘Imperial Parliament Series’ a small work on ‘Disestablishment’ (London, 8vo).
Richard achieved his greatest parliamentary triumph on 8 July 1873, when he carried in the House of Commons a motion in favour of international arbitration similar to that which Cobden had moved twenty-five years previously. In the autumn he undertook a continental tour or ‘mission,’ with the object of promoting the peace movement by personal communication with foreign statesmen. He was civilly received, and in three succeeding years he paid shorter visits to the continent, chiefly for the purpose of attending congresses on international law. In 1878 he went to Berlin, in an endeavour to obtain a fuller recognition of arbitration in the Berlin treaty, which, however, simply reaffirmed the declaration he had succeeded in getting inserted in the treaty of Paris in 1856. Before his return home he presided at some of the sittings of a second peace congress held in Paris in connection with the exhibition of that year. On 16 June 1880 he introduced in the House of Commons a motion in favour of a gradual and mutual disarmament, which was accepted in a modified form by the government. In July 1885 he retired from the secretaryship of the Peace Society, and a testimonial of four thousand guineas was presented to him.
His interest in education increased in his later years. In 1880–1 he served on the departmental committee appointed to inquire into the condition of intermediate and higher education in Wales, the report of which (C—3047) led to the passing of the Intermediate Education (Wales) Act of 1889, and the establishment in 1893 of a Welsh University. In January 1886 he became a member of the royal commission on education. On his initiative it recommended a scheme—since adopted by the education department—for utilising the Welsh language in elementary schools.
As a congregationalist, Richard was associated with Samuel Morley and others in forming, in 1860, a society for supporting English congregational churches in South Wales (Rees, Nonconformity in Wales, p. 459). From January 1875 till his death he was chairman of the deputies of the three (dissenting) denominations, and in 1877 he filled the chair of the Congregational Union, when he delivered addresses on ‘The Relations of the Temporal and Spiritual Power in the different Nations’ (London, 1877, 8vo) and on ‘The Application of Christianity to Politics’ (London, 1877, 8vo).
He died on 20 Aug. 1888 while on a visit to Treborth, near Bangor, and was buried on the 24th at Abney Park cemetery, where a monument provided by public subscription was erected over his grave in November 1889. A bronze statue provided by subscriptions among the Welsh people was unveiled in his native town of Tregaron in August 1893.
Richard, who died without issue, had married (20 Aug. 1866) Matilda Augusta, third daughter of John Farley of Kennington, who survived him. Richard was a
