Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 3.djvu/235

 produce a weekly paper, 'The Circle'; later he produced on his own account ’The Tenant Farmer' and 'The Free Speaker' (1873–4).

Rogers, who had been brought up a strict Wesleyan, was introduced by Sir Isaac Pitman [q. v. Suppl. I] to Swedenborg's writings, which greatly influenced his religious views; later he was led to study mesmerism and mesmeric healing. He had also while living at Hanley made the acquaintance of Joseph Barker [q. v.]. Convincing himself of the genuineness of spiritualistic manifestations, he helped to form in 1873 the British National Association of Spiritualists. On 8 Jan. 1881 he founded a weekly journal, 'Light,' which became the leading organ of spiritualism and psychical research, and was its editor from 1894 till his death. In 1882 Rogers, Prof. W. F. Barrett, and others joined in establishing the Society for Psychical Research; among the original members were F. W. H. Myers [q. v. Suppl. I], Prof. Henry Sidgwick [q. v. Suppl. I], Edmund Gumey [q. v.], and William Stainton Moses [q. v.]. Rogers was a member of the council from 1882 to 1885. Although painstaking and cautious in psychical research, Rogers, to whom spiritualism was of vital importance, had little sympathy with what he considered the anti-spiritualistic bias of the Psychical Research Society, and resigned his membership in its early years, although he subsequently became an honorary member in 1894. In 1884 he was a founder of the London Spiritualist Alliance, of which he was president from 1892 to death.

On his eightieth birthday he was presented with an album consisting of an illuminated address signed by 1500 spiritualists from all parts of the world. In July 1907 his health failed, and he died at Finchley on 28 Sept. 1910. He was buried in the Marylebone cemetery, Finchley. His 'Life and Experiences,' an autobiography, came out in 1911. Rogers married, on 11 July 1843, Sophia Jane (d. 1892), daughter of Joseph and Ann Hawkes, and had issue two sons and four daughters. The younger surviving daughter, Alice, married in January 1908 Mr. Henry Withall, treasurer and vice-president of the London Spiritualist Alliance. His portrait in oils, painted by James Archer, R.S.A. [q. v. Suppl. II], in 1901, was presented by the artist to the London Spiritualist Alliance.

 ROGERS, JAMES GUINNESS (1822–1911), congregational divine, one of thirteen children of Thomas Rogers (1796–1854), of Cornish birth, by his wife Anna, daughter of Edwin Stanley, of Irish birth (connected, through her mother, with the Guinness family), was born on 29 December 1822 at Enniskillen, where his father (like his mother, originally an Anglican) was a preacher in the service of the Irish Evangelical Society (congregational). His father, a successful preacher, removed to Armagh, and in 1826 to Prescot, where he was 'on terms of close intimacy with the unitarian minister,' Gilbert William Elliott. His first schoohng was at Silcoates, near Wakefield. Through the kindness of his relative, Arthur Guinness (1768–1855), grandfather of Baron Ardilaun and of Viscount Iveagh, he entered Trinity College, Dublin, where he was a contemporary of William Digby Seymour [q. v.], and latterly was engaged as teacher in an English school. After graduating B.A. in 1843 he entered the Lancashire Independent College, Manchester, where he had as contemporaries Robert Alfred Vaughan [q. v.] and Enoch Mellor; the latter appears to have influenced him most. Leaving in 1845, he was ordained on 15 April 1846, and became minister of St. James's chapel, Newcastle-on-Tyne, where he had to combat the rationalistic spirit engendered by Joseph Barker [q. v.] and came under the spell of Edward Miall [q. v.]. In 1851 he removed to the pastorate of Albion Chapel, Ashton-under-Lyne, then known as 'Cricketty,' from its situation on Crickets' Lane (a fine Gothic structure now takes its place). His ministry here was one of great power, and he was the means of erecting new school premises. In 1857 charges of heresy were brought against Samuel Davidson [q. v. Suppl. I], who as one of his tutors had taken part in the ordination of Rogers. The main point was an alleged impugning of the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch. Nothing contributed more to the expulsion of Davidson from his chair in the Lancashire Independent College than a bitter pamphlet, 