W. R. W. (William Richard Wood) Stephens

Born in Gloucestershire in 1839, William Richard Wood Stephens was educated privately and then at Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first in Literae Humaniores in 1862. He was ordained in the 1860s and began his ministry with curacies at Staines and Purley before building a long connection with the Chichester diocese.

Stephens served as vicar of Mid Lavant, lecturer at Chichester Theological College, prebendary of Wittering, and later rector of Woolbeding. In 1895 he became Dean of Winchester, a post he held until his death in 1902. Contemporary accounts describe him as generous with his own money, helping to restore churches and support repairs at Winchester Cathedral.

As a writer, he worked as an ecclesiastical historian and biographer. He contributed articles to the Dictionary of National Biography and wrote books including Memorials of the South Saxon See and Cathedral Church of Chichester and Saint John Chrysostom, His Life and Times. His work reflects both a historian’s patience and a clergyman’s close interest in the life of the Church.