Born in Burbage Leicestershire Richards was the son of Smith Richards a retired surgeon and Josephine

He studied as a student at Wells and Caius College Cambridge. His first post was as curate at Wateringbury Kent, then moving to Chiddingstone in the same county as vicar. While in Kent he married Ellen Stansell, a son being born in 1922. For a short time in the mid-1930s he was vicar at Tideford in Cornwell. He was working in Suffolk by 1939 when he is listed as Vicar of Great Finborough. The following year he was inducted to the living of Stowupland and Creeting St. Peter. In 1944 he returned to Cornwell exchanging livings with Reverend Arnold De Quincey and moving to the parish of Perranuthnoe where he died in 1950