Dick Milford

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Theodore Richard Milford (10 June 1895 – 19 January 1987) was an

philanthropist, who was involved in the founding of Oxfam
.

Biography

He was born at

headmaster of the local preparatory school, and Elspeth Barter, the granddaughter of George Moberly, Bishop of Salisbury. He attended Clifton College,[1]
where curriculum included instruction in music as well as the customary classical education.

When the

Oxford and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry. He fought in Mesopotamia and had two periods of leave in India. In 1918 he was sent to Cairo to train for the Royal Flying Corps
, but in 1919 he was invalided and sent home.

In the same year, he went up to

first-class degree in 1921. He had been involved with the Student Christian Movement (SCM) at Oxford, a connection which took him back to India to teach first at Alwaye College, Travancore (1921–23) and then St. John's College, Agra (1923–24). He then returned to England to serve as local SCM secretary in Liverpool
between 1924 and 1926.

He spent the academical year 1930-31 training for

priest in Lucknow, India, in 1934. He returned to England in 1935 to serve as curate at All Hallows, Lombard Street, London
. At the same time, he worked as study secretary for the SCM.

He left both positions to become Vicar of St Mary's, the Oxford University church. In this capacity, he founded a philosophical and theological discussion group known as the Colloquy.

On 5 October 1942, he met with several other distinguished individuals in the Old Library at St Mary's (at the instigation of the

blockades. This meeting resulted in the foundation of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief (later Oxfam
, of which Milford was the first chairman.

In 1947, he left his posts at both St Mary's and the Oxford Committee to become

canon and chancellor of Lincoln Cathedral, having special responsibility for religious education in the diocese, including Lincoln Theological College
. During this time, he wrote his first book, Foolishness to the Greeks (published in 1953), based on his talks for a university mission.

In 1958, he became

British Council of Churches
).

In 1968, he left the Temple and

Teilhard de Chardin, in whom Milford had a great sympatethic interest. In retirement, he wrote a book of verse entitled Belated Harvest (published 1978) and some privately published memoirs. He died on 19 January 1987.[2]

Personal life

He married Nancy Dickens Bourchier, daughter of the solicitor Ernest Hawksley and great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, in 1932. They had two daughters. She died in 1936; the following year, he married Margaret Nowell Smith, daughter of Nowell Charles Smith, who had been headmaster of Sherborne School (and who had appointed Milford's father to be a housemaster at the same school in 1911). They had a son who died in infancy, and a further two daughters. His personal interests included chess, music and sailing.

References

  1. ^ "Clifton College Register" Muirhead, J.A.O. p302: Bristol; J.W Arrowsmith for Old Cliftonian Society; April, 1948
  2. ^ Richard Milford Archived 2015-12-08 at the Wayback Machine on the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, accessed 1 December 2015
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