Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Slate, Richard
SLATE, RICHARD (1787–1867), divine, probably the son of Thomas Slate, chip and Leghorn hat manufacturer, of 36 Noble Street, London, was born in London on 10 July 1787. In his seventeenth year he joined the congregation at Founders' Hall, Lothbury, and was a Sunday-school teacher in connection with the London Itinerant Society. In 1805 he entered Hoxton Academy, which he left in 1809 to become minister of the independent church at Stand, near Manchester, where he was ordained on 19 April 1810. Here he remained until September 1826, when he accepted the pastorate of Grimshaw Street Chapel, Preston, Lancashire, a charge which he retained for thirty-five years. He took part in all movements for the good of the town, and was active in the denominational work throughout the county. He died at Preston on 10 Dec. 1867, and was buried at Stand. He married Ann Watkins in 1810; she died in 1851.
He published: 1. ‘Select Nonconformists' Remains: being Original Sermons of Oliver Heywood, Thomas Jollie, Henry Newcome, and Henry Pendlebury. Selected with Memoirs of the authors,’ Bury, 1814. 2. ‘Memoirs of the Rev. Oliver Heywood,’ Idle, 1825 (forming the first volume of Heywood's ‘Works’). 3. ‘A Brief History of the Lancashire Congregational Union, and of the Blackburn Independent Academy,’ 1840. He contributed to Halley's ‘Lancashire Nonconformity’ and other local works, and wrote the notices of R. Frankland's students in Turner's edition of ‘Oliver Heywood's Diaries,’ vol. iv.
[Congregational Year-book, 1869; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity, i. 53 et passim; Hewitson's Our Churches and Chapels, p. 164; Preston Newspapers.]