Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/153

 had been associated with men employed on the carvings in St. Paul's Cathedral under Gibbons himself. Rogers devoted his studies to the works of Gibbons, and thoroughly mastered that carver's art. Gaining much reputation, he was employed by the royal family on carvings for Carlton House, Kensington Palace, and the Pavilion at Brighton. His progress was assisted by the collection which he made of fine specimens of art. In 1848 he executed some of his best known carvings—those in the church of St. Mary-at-Hill in the city. In 1850 he was elected on the committee for carrying out the scheme of the Great Exhibition, and received a commission from the queen to carve a cradle in boxwood in the Italian style, which was exhibited and much admired at the exhibition in 1851. Rogers was awarded both a prize and a service medal. Among his innumerable wood carvings may be mentioned those executed for the palace of the sultan, Abdul Medjîd, at Constantinople, and the church of St. Michael, Cornhill, in the city. While it cannot be said that his works reproduce the consummate genius of Gibbons, they have great merit in themselves, and are sufficiently successful in their imitation to deceive the inexperienced eye. Rogers carried his devotion to the art of Gibbons far enough to devise a mode of preserving Gibbons's carvings from the ravages of worms and age. His method was completely successful, and among the carvings thus rescued from destruction may be noted those at Belton House, Grantham, at Melbury, at Chatsworth, and at Trinity College, Cambridge. Rogers received a pension of 50l. on the civil list, and after a long and successful career, he died on 21 March 1875, in his eighty-third year. He married, in April 1824, Miss Mary Johnson, and left a numerous family, of whom William Harry Rogers (1825–1873) showed great talents in designing; Edward Thomas Rogers (1830–1884), and Mary Eliza Rogers (b. 1827), who resided for many years in the East, and wrote, among other essays on oriental life, a well-known work, entitled ‘Domestic Life in Palestine’ (1862). His youngest son, George Alfred Rogers (b. 1837), who still survives, was the only son who adopted his father's profession. A portrait (with a memoir) of Rogers appeared in the ‘Illustrated London News’ for 4 April 1875.

 ROGERS, WOODES (d. 1732), sea-captain and governor of the Bahamas, was in 1708 appointed captain of the Duke and commander-in-chief of the two ships Duke and Duchess, private men-of-war fitted out by some merchants of Bristol to cruise against the Spaniards in the South Sea. Among the owners, it is stated, were several quakers (, Memoirs of Bristol, ii. 559), and [q. v.], who sailed with the expedition as second captain of the Duke, president of the council and chief medical officer. [q. v.] was master of the Duke and pilot of the expedition, Rogers, it would seem, having no personal experience of the Pacific. The crew were of varied character, about a third were foreigners, and a large proportion of the rest, landsmen—‘tailors, tinkers, pedlars, fiddlers, and haymakers.’ The ships themselves were ‘very crowded and pestered, their holds full of provisions, and between decks encumbered with cables, much bread, and altogether in a very unfit state to engage an enemy.’ They sailed from King Road on 2 Aug. 1708, and, after touching at Cork, steered for the Canary Islands, Rogers, on the way, suppressing a dangerous mutiny by seizing the ringleader—with the assistance of the officers, who were unusually numerous—and making ‘one of his chief comrades whip him, which method I thought best for breaking any unlawful friendship amongst them.’ Off Tenerife they captured a small Spanish bark laden with wine and brandy, which they added to their own stores, and touching at St. Vincent of the Cape Verd Islands, and Angra dos Reis on the coast of Brazil, they got round Cape Horn in the beginning of January 1708–9, being driven by a violent storm as far south as latitude 61° 53′, ‘which,’ wrote Rogers, ‘for aught we know is the furthest that any one has yet been to the southward.’ But the men had suffered greatly from cold, wet, and insufficient clothing, and Rogers resolved to make Juan Fernandez, the exact position of which was still undetermined, but which he fortunately reached on 31 Jan.

It was dark when they came near the land, and seeing a light, they lay to, thinking that it might come from an enemy's ship. In the morning, however, no strange ship was to be seen, and Dover, going on shore in the boat, brought off a man dressed in goatskins and speaking English with difficulty. This was the celebrated [q. v.], who had been marooned there more than four years before, and, being now recognised by Dampier as an old shipmate and good sailor, was appointed by Rogers a mate of the Duke.

After refitting at Juan Fernandez, they cruised off the coast of Peru for some months, capturing several small vessels and one larger one—in attacking which Rogers's brother Thomas was killed by a shot through