Richard Blundell Comins

Richard Blundell Comins (15 November 1848 – 11 March 1919) was an English Anglican priest who worked as a missionary for the Anglican Mission to Melanesia. He became the first Archdeacon of Northern Melanesia in 1900.

Born in Tiverton, Devon in 1848, Comins went to New Zealand as a teenager to study farming. He arrived in Auckland Harbour on board the passenger ship in December 1862 and on his return to England did six months of surgical training at St Thomas' Hospital in London. He read for his licentiate in theology at Hatfield Hall, Durham and was ordained in 1873, and subsequently served for three years as a curate in Grantham.

Becoming a missionary in the South Pacific, he served successively in Emae from 1877 to 1880, San Cristobal from 1880 to 1894, and Siota from 1895 to 1902. In 1893 Comins was on board as it visited each of the Solomon Islands so its commander, Captain Gibson, could make the formal declaration of the British Solomon Islands Protectorate. He died in Auckland, New Zealand, on 11 March 1919.