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Richard Heber Bennett (1866-1945) was a pastor, moral reform leader, and author. He attended private schools in Richmond and Ashland, Virginia. He received a B.A. in 1883 and am M.A. in 1885 from Randolph- Macon College. From 1883 to 1885 he was an assistant professor at Randolph- Macon. Hebrew was his field of post graduate work. In 1895 he married Mamie Bruce. They had four children.
Bennett was the principal of Woodbourne Academy in Louisa, Virginia from 1885 to 1888. During 1889, he was principal of Spring City, Tennessee, High School. Later that year he was licensed to preach. In November 1889, he joined the Virginia Conference and was assigned to Washington Street in Richmond.
Between 1892 and 1893 Bennett attended Princeton Theological Seminary. He returned to Virginia in the summer of 1893 and worked in the West Mathews Circuit. He was then assigned to Trinity Church in Richmond. After a brief time in the Baltimore Conference, Bennett returned to Richmond in 1894. Later that year he was transferred to Farmville and Norfolk.
Bennett pastored the McKendree Church in Norfolk from 1894 to 1899 and the St. James Church in Richmond from 1900 to 1901. In 1901 he was re-assigned to Norfolk. At the Conference of 1902, he was appointed presiding elder of the Richmond District. Bennett held this position for a year, and then went to Randolph-Macon College to become professor of moral philosophy. During his four years at Randolph- Macon, Bennett became the Virginia State Superintendent of the Anti-Saloon League.
In 1907, he left his administrative post and returned to the pastorate at the Court Street Church in Lynchburg. After four years he left that church and became the conference's missionary secretary for three years.
During his time at Lynchburg the donated $20,000 to their missionary offering which went to the construction of a building at Soochow University in China.
In 1914, the General Board of Education of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, elected Bennett secretary of ministerial supply and training. During this time, he also oversaw the correspondence school at Emory University in Atlanta.
In 1926, he was elected field agent for the southern states of the Anti- Saloon League of America. A year later he was elected president of Lander College in Greenwood, South Carolina, a position he held for five years. He returned to his pastoral duties in 1932 at Portsmouth, Virginia. This was followed by appointments at Norfolk and Lawrenceville, Virginia. He retired in 1936.