The son of Richard Deacon Lovett and Annie Godart his wife, he was born at
Croydon on 5 January 1851. Nine years of boyhood (1858–67) were spent with his parents at
Brooklyn in the United States. Leaving school there at an early age, he was employed by a New York publisher. In 1867 he returned to England, and in 1869 entered
Cheshunt College, the president of which, Dr.
Henry Robert Reynolds, became a significant influence on him. He graduated B.A. with honours in philosophy at
London University in 1873, and proceeded M.A. in 1874, when he left Cheshunt and was ordained to the ministry of the
Countess of Huntingdon's connexion. He began ministerial work at
Bishop's Stortford, also acting as assistant master at the school there. File:De Dam - Amsterdam - the Netherlands.jpg|thumb|Dam Square, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Pictures from Holland 1887) by Richard Lovett In 1876 Lovett accepted an independent charge as minister of the Countess of Huntingdon church at
Rochdale. In 1882 he changed direction, and was appointed book editor of the
Religious Tract Society. He then became a director of the
London Missionary Society. Interest in missionary work brought him into close touch with
James Chalmers (
New Guinea) and
James Gilmour (
Mongolia), both of whose lives he wrote. He revisited the United States as a delegate to the ecumenical missionary conference of 1900. Lovett formed for himself a collection of early English Bibles and kindred works, which was dispersed after his death. In 1899, on the retirement of
Samuel Gosnell Green, Lovett became one of the secretaries of the Religious Tract Society, charged with the Society's continental interests, while retaining much of his former work as book editor. Towards the end of his life the affairs of Cheshunt College, of which he acted as honorary secretary, troubled him, and he was among the early workers for the reconstitution of the
Congregational Union. Lovett died suddenly of heart failure at
Clapham, London, on 29 December 1904. ==Works==