author
Alfred Bate Richards
1820–1876
A lively Victorian man of letters, he moved from the law into journalism, drama, poetry, and fiction. He also played a visible part in public life, helping to promote Britain’s volunteer movement in the 1850s.
1 Audiobook
Cromwell: A Drama, in Five Acts
by Alfred Bate Richards
About the author
Born in Worcestershire in 1820, Alfred Bate Richards was educated at Westminster School and Exeter College, Oxford. After taking his degree, he briefly followed the legal path and was called to the bar, but his real career unfolded in writing and journalism.
He became known as a journalist, dramatist, poet, and novelist, producing plays, poems, essays, and later the novel So Very Human. Richards was also associated with newspaper editing, including early work with the Daily Telegraph and later the Morning Advertiser, which helped make him a recognizable figure in Victorian literary and public life.
Beyond literature, he was remembered as an energetic supporter of the volunteer movement that grew in Britain in 1859. He died in London in 1876, leaving behind the varied record of a writer who moved easily between the newsroom, the stage, and public debate.