Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/95

 ROE, RICHARD (d. 1853), stenographer and miscellaneous writer, doubtless graduated B.A. in the university of Dublin in 1789. In the early part of his career he may have been a mathematical and classical teacher. Afterwards he was in holy orders. He was residing in Dublin in 1821, and in 1835. He was a popular bass-singer, and gave in London some glee and ballad entertainments. He died in London in March 1853.

His principal works are: 1. ‘A New System of Shorthand, in which legibility and brevity are secured upon the most natural principles, with respect to both the signification and formation of the characters: especially by the singular property of their sloping all one way according to the habitual motion of the hand in common writing,’ London, 1802, 8vo; 1808, 4to. 2. ‘Radiography, or a System of Easy Writing, comprised in a set of the most simple and expeditious characters,’ London, 1821, 8vo. These works mark a new departure in the development of stenography. Roe was in fact the originator of that cursive or script style of shorthand which, though it has never found favour in this country, has acquired wide popularity in Germany, where it has been successfully developed by Gabelsberger, Stolze, Arends, and others.

Roe was also the author of: 3. ‘Elements of English Metre,’ London, 1801, 4to. 4. ‘Principles of Rhythm both in Speech and Music,’ Dublin, 1823, 4to, dedicated to the president and members of the Royal Irish Academy. 5. ‘Introduction to Book-keeping,’ London, 1825, 12mo. 6. ‘The English Spelling Book,’ Dublin, 1829, 12mo; a work of great value to the advocates of spelling reform. 7. ‘Analytical Arrangement of the Apocalypse,’ Dublin, 1834, 4to. 8. ‘Analytical Arrangement of the Holy Scriptures,’ 2 vols. London, 1851, 8vo; on the title-page he gives his name as Richard Baillie Roe.

The shorthand writer is sometimes confused with Richard Roe, a surveyor, skilled in mathematics, who died at Derby in July 1814, aged 56 (Gent. Mag. 1814, ii. 194; Biogr. Dict. of Living Authors, 1816, pp. 299, 446).

[Allibone's Dict. of Authors; Faulmann's Historische Grammatik der Stenographie, p. 157; Gibson's Bibliography of Shorthand, p. 194; Gibson's Memoir of Simon Bordley, 1890, pp. 11–13; Levy's Hist. of Shorthand, p. 137; Lewis's Historical Account of Shorthand, p. 182; Shorthand, i. 103–7, 130; Zeibig's Geschichte der Geschwindschreibkunst, pp. 89, 212; Brown's Dict. of English Musicians; Athenæum, 1853, p. 360.] 

ROE, THOMAS (1581?–1644), ambassador, son of Robert Rowe, was born at Low Leyton, near Wanstead in Essex, in 1580 or 1581. His grandfather, Sir Thomas Rowe or Roe, merchant tailor, was alderman, sheriff (1560), and lord mayor of London (1568); Mary, daughter of Sir John Gresham, was Sir Thomas's wife [see under ; and Remembrancia, p. 332]. Robert, the father of the ambassador, died while his son was a child (, Athenæ, ed. Bliss, iii. 111). His mother, Elinor, daughter of Robert Jermy of Worstead, Norfolk (Philpot pedigree in College of Arms), subsequently married ‘one Berkeley of Rendcomb in Gloucestershire, of the family of the Lord Berkeley.’

Thomas matriculated as a commoner of Magdalen College, Oxford, on 6 July 1593, at the age of twelve. He had clearly powerful family influence, whether from the Berkeleys, the family of his stepfather, or from his father's wealthy relations. After spending some time ‘in one of the inns of court or in France or both’, he was appointed esquire of the body to Queen Elizabeth in the last years of her reign, and after her death was knighted by James I on 23 March 1604–5. He was popular at court, especially with Henry, prince of Wales, and his sister Elizabeth, afterwards queen of Bohemia; and the former gave him his first opportunity of distant travel by sending him ‘upon a discovery to the West Indies.’ Roe equipped a ship and pinnace, and sailed from Plymouth on 24 Feb. 1609–10. Striking the mouth of the Amazon, then unknown to English explorers, he sailed two hundred miles up the river, and rowed in boats one hundred miles further, making many excursions into the country from the banks; then returning to the mouth, he explored the coast and entered various rivers in canoes, passing over ‘thirty-two falles in the river of Wia Poko’ or Oyapok. Having examined the coast from the Amazon to the Orinoco for thirteen months, without discovering the gold in which the West Indies were believed to abound, he returned home by way of Trinidad, and reached the Isle of Wight in July 1611. Twice again was he sent to the same coast, ‘to make farther discoveries, and maintained twenty men in the River of Amozones, for the good of his countrey, who are yet [1614] remaining there, and supplied’ (, Annales, continued by Howes, 1631, p. 1022). At the close of 1613 he was at Flushing ‘going for Captaine Floods companye,’ who was just dead (, Letters and Memorials of State of the Sydney Family, ii. 329). While in the Netherlands he