‘The liberator of Greece’ – Brian Maye on Richard Church

That Cork-born Richard Church was known as “the liberator of Greece” tells us that he led an adventurous life. He fought in campaigns in Spain, Egypt and Italy, as well as Greece, and died 150 years ago on March 20th.

He was born on February 23rd, 1784, in the North Mall area of Cork city, the fourth of seven children of Matthew Church, a Quaker merchant, and Anne Dearman, originally from Darlington in England. He ran away to become a soldier at the age of 16, which caused him to be disowned by the Society of Friends, but his father bought him a commission in the 13th (Somersetshire) Light Infantry. He served briefly in Spain and then participated in the British expedition to Egypt. There, according to James Quinn, who wrote the entry on him in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, “he gained a strong dislike of Ottoman rule”.

While serving in Malta, he was promoted to lieutenant in early 1803 and three years later was made captain of the Corsican Rangers. “A courageous and aggressive soldier, he distinguished himself in the defence of Capri and was seriously wounded commanding the small British force that seized the Ionian islands of Zante, Cerigo and Ithaca (1809-10),” according to James Quinn. On Zante, he formed two regiments of Greek infantry on British pay, greatly admiring the fighting spirit of the Greeks, whose desire for independence from Ottoman rule he strongly supported. Some of the men from those Greek regiments were afterwards leaders in the Greek War of Independence.

He pleaded the case for Greek independence in England and at the Congress of Vienna that followed the end of the Napoleonic Wars but the British government failed to support it and disbanded their Greek regiments at the request of the Ottomans. By this time, Church was British military resident with the Austrian armies in Italy where, for his distinguished service, he was awarded honours by the Bourbon king of Naples and Companion of the Order of the Bath (CB) by the British war office.

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Church remained in Italy, becoming a lieutenant-general in King Ferdinand’s Neapolitan army and tasked with suppressing secret societies and banditry. He was promoted to governor of Palermo and commander-in-chief in Sicily but an anti-Bourbon rebellion in 1820 caused his expulsion from Sicily and six months’ imprisonment in Naples. Following his release, for financial and other reasons he was unable to join the Greek independence struggle that began in 1821 and returned to England, where he was knighted.

Although he fully supported the Greek War of Independence, he could only do so from the distance of England for some years. Due to indiscipline, inefficiency and confusion, the Greek insurgents desperately needed a foreign saviour and in response to their urgent summons, Church arrived in Greece in March 1827. There, an English naval officer described him as “certainly a fine fellow, but a complete Irishman with their great virtues and little faults”. He was elected commander-in-chief of the Greek armies but found it hard to secure loyalty and obedience. Failing to relieve the Acropolis, he resorted to guerrilla warfare in western Greece, where he won a series of victories and entered Missolonghi in June 1829. But he quarrelled with both local and foreign commanders and resigned when the Greek president-elect, John Capodistrias, didn’t support his campaign. Church wanted the liberated parts of western Greece to be included in the newly independent country, which Capodistrias opposed; Church’s position was vindicated in May 1832.

He stayed on in Athens after the war, became a Greek citizen and got deeply involved in Greek politics. Appointed to the council of state, he became inspector-general of the army and governor of Rumeli. Himself a liberal and constitutionalist, he found the new King Otto too autocratic and had a significant role in the 1843 revolution that made Greece a constitutional monarchy. He was appointed to the senate in 1843 and acted as unofficial British ambassador to Athens, advising British prime ministers on Anglo-Greek affairs.

In 1826, he had married Elizabeth Wilmot Horton, daughter of Sir Robert of Osmaston, Derbyshire, who was under-secretary of state for the colonies in George Canning’s government. She joined him for a time in Athens after Greek independence but following serious illness had to return permanently too England.

Church was honoured with a Greek state funeral; his funeral monument is in the First Cemetery of Athens, opposite the Church of St Lazarus, and has an inscription in English on the front and Greek on the back. It reads: “Richard Church, General, who, having given himself and all he had to rescue a Christian race from oppression, and to make Greece a nation, lived for her service and died among her people, rests here in peace and faith.”