Richard was born in Tasmania, a son of mine manager Moses John Richards (died at
George Town, Tasmania on 3 June 1910) and his wife Eliza Richards, née Sullivan (died at
Beaconsfield on 20 August 1904). :Moses J. Richards, a temperance advocate, was a brother and prospecting partner of Samuel Richards, who discovered gold at Nine Mile Springs, acknowledged as the first payable reef in Tasmania, and shared his prize of £1,000. (In 1881 Nine Mile Springs was renamed Lefroy, for Sir
Henry Lefroy, acting Governor.) While in Tasmania Moses lived successively at Lefroy,
Beaconsfield, and finally
George Town. He was mine manager for the Native Youth Mining Company at Lefroy, then the City of Launceston mine while his brother managed the Native Youth. Richard was resident at Lefroy in 1882 when he owned a small parcel of shares in the Wanderer Gold Mining Company. He studied at the
Ballarat School of Mines, and worked for a time in an assay office at
Charters Towers, where he made some improvements to the systems employed there. He is said to have become an employee of the Mount Morgan Mine in 1884 in some minor capacity, and having gained the confidence of J. Wesley Hall (managing director and brother of
Walter Russell Hall), was soon working in the
assay office, and when Henry Trenear left, served in his place as head of that section. In 1901 he was left £2,000 in Wesley Hall's will. Later that year he and G. P. Seale were sent by the company on a nine-month round-the-world tour of major gold producers. Richard was appointed mine manager in 1903. after the death of Roger Lisle, and general manager a few months later. By this time the Mine had collected a technical staff of expertise rivalled by no other company in Australia, with the possible exception of
BHP, with salaries to match. At a rumoured £3000 or more, Richard was reckoned to be the highest paid employee of any industrial company in Queensland. One historian asserts that it was made under pressure from managing director R. S. Archer, under instructions from directors R. G. Casey and (Sir)
Kelso King, who believed he could not resist workers' demands in the event of a strike. There had been reports of stormy meetings, and in truth he may not have been sorry to go. There had been two recent mine disasters, and major problems with the new copper extraction process. In retirement he spent much time with his sons who were sheep-farming in the north-west of the State, did some munitions work during
The Great War and campaigned for an improved railway system to alleviate the effects of drought on farmers. For much of his later life he lived at Norman Crescent, East Brisbane. He died in Brisbane General Hospital and was cremated. ==Inventions==