Richard Edward DEAR

DEAR, RICHARD EDWARD (b. Hampshire, England, 13 May 1809; d. Hobart, Tas, 27 May 1880). Businessman, missionary.

Dear, son of a wealthy farmer, was educated at Dr Nicholas's School. He entered business in London, first as a chemist and then as a manufacturing stationer. Converted under Dr Henry Townley, he became a Sunday school organiser in Townley's church, but soon expanded the scope of his lay activism. He learned the blind alphabet in order to educate a young blind woman, who later taught a class of blind children. When David Nasmith formed the LCM, Dear was an original supporter and patron. For some years he was treasurer of the LCM and an Examiner of its agents. For many years Dear conducted a young man's Bible class. A curious fact about this class indirectly reveals much about Dear. The old scholars—a significant number of whom became ministers, merchants, barristers and legislators, including W Vale, a prominent Victorian politician and temperance advocate—stayed in contact with each other, and with Dear, at least up to Dear's death, through a private periodical called 'Our Own Correspondent'.

Busy but not satisfied, Dear in 1854 emigrated to Tas. Shortly after, he was ordained by the Tasmanian Congregational Union, becoming its missionary in country districts. He also became travelling agent of the Tasmanian auxiliary of the BFBS. Dear, his back to Hobart as well as London, was a countryman again. Amiable in manner, but polished when he needed to be, he soon became a familiar horseback traveller in Tasmanian country districts, lecturing on such subjects as 'Britain and the Bible'. He built a reputation for dispensing good advice on agriculture and farm chemicals as well as religious matters. In later years Dear became partly sedentary. Between journeys, he took on the role of minister of the Congregational church at Carlton, near Sorell, and was responsible for significant Congregationalist growth in South-East Tasmania.

J Campbell, Memoirs of David Nasmith (London, 1844); Mercury (Hobart) 29 May 1880

RICHARD ELY