Richard Copley Christie

Richard Copley Christie (22 July 1830 – 9 January 1901) was an English lawyer, University teacher, philanthropist and bibliophile.

He was born at Lenton in Nottinghamshire, the son of a mill owner. He was educated at Lincoln College, Oxford where he was tutored by Mark Pattison, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1857. He also held numerous academic appointments, notably the professorships of history (from 1854 to 1856) and of political economy (from 1855 to 1866) at Owens College. He always took an active interest in this college, of which he was one of the governors. In 1898 he gave the Christie Library building, designed by Alfred Waterhouse: the plan connected this on the east with the Whitworth Hall.

Christie was a friend of the industrialist Sir Joseph Whitworth. By Whitworth's will, Christie was appointed one of three legatees, each of whom was left more than half a million pounds for their own use, ‘they being each of them aware of the objects’ to which these funds would have been put by Whitworth. They chose to spend more than a fifth of the money on support for Owens College, together with the purchase of land now occupied by the Manchester Royal Infirmary. In 1897, Christie personally assigned more than £50,000 for the erection of the Whitworth Hall, to complete the front quadrangle of Owens College. He was president of the Whitworth Institute from 1890 to 1895 and was much interested in the medical and other charities of Manchester, especially the Cancer Pavilion and Home, of whose committee he was chairman from 1890 to 1893, and which later became the Christie Hospital. In October 1893 the freedom of the city of Manchester was conferred upon him and on his surviving fellow legatee, R. D. Darbishire.

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