Appendix E: Biographies
Rogers1
Dr. James Rogers (1819 – 11 July 1890), physician to the British Legation in St. Petersburg, was also the Whistler family’s physician. Born in Scotland, he received his MD from Glasgow University in 1833 and went to Russia, where he was licensed by the Imperial Medical Chirurgical Academy of St. Petersburg in 1834. He engaged in private practice, but at some point became attached to the Obukhov Hospital in that city.2 When the position of physician to the British Legation was relinquished by Sir George William Lefevre (1798–1846) in 1842, Rogers succeeded him.3 We know, mainly from Anna Whistler’s St. Petersburg diaries, that he attended the grave illness of John Stevenson Maxwell (1844) and the death (October 1846) of the Whistlers’ last child, John Bouttatz Whistler. He was also the physician for Charlotte Leon, whom he supplied with free medications and attended at her final illness (1847). He attended Major Whistler (see Images 7–8, 21) in his final illness and was present on the night of 7 April 1849, when Major Whistler died. He also attended baby George Whistler Eastwick in his final illness (1849) and was considered by the child’s parents to be “very attentive and appears to study his case more than Dr. C [Collier, their own physician at Alexandrofsky] did.”4 He lived at 247 Galernaia Street in the building belonging to Potocki, in the First Admiralty District, Fourth Ward (see “Maps”).5
It is not clear exactly when he returned to England permanently, but he settled in Port View, Saltash, Cornwall,6 where his brother, Dr. William Rogers (1817 – 7 April 1904), Surgeon RN (retired as of early 1863), was living with his wife and children.7 It appears that James Rogers registered for practice there in 1873 and retired in 1877.8 He was the author of On the Present State of Therapeutics, with Some Suggestions for Placing It upon a More Scientific Basis (London and Edinburgh: John Churchill & Sons, 1870).9
He settled in the Port View Estate.10 The home of “Dr. James Rogers, unmarried, retired Surgeon or Physician, not practicing,” is listed in the 1881 Census for Saltash as “No Name Villa,” “probably a nickname bestowed by the local people because the house was the only one on the estate without a name.”11 His brother, William, living at 2 Lynwood Villa, with his wife, Emily, had, according to the 1871 Census, three daughters and one son: Florence (14), William J. (12), Emily Chalmers (10), and Dora (9). By the 1881 Census, Dora (19) unmarried, was living with her Uncle James. By 1890, she had gone back to her father’s home and Emily C. Rogers, her sister, was living with Uncle James.12 Florence Rogers (Edinburgh 1857 – Exeter, Devon 11 October 1922) had married at Stoke Damerel in July 1886 Cecil Clement Longridge (Tynemouth 6 September 1852 – Naples, Italy 23 November 1939), bachelor, of St. Bede’s College, Manchester.13
In his will, drawn up on 7 March 1890, with a codicil dated 9 April 1890,14 James Rogers showed both his philanthropy and his affection for his brother, nephew, and nieces. He left money to the Royal National Life Boat Institution for the purchase of a lifeboat, named, for his nephew, the “Willie Rogers,”15 and to the East End Juvenile Mission (Dr. Barnardo’s Homes). He left an annual lifetime trust of £450 for his brother. The most interesting bequest, however, was that to his nieces, to whom he left an extensive collection of works of art. Of some thirty-five oil paintings, engravings, oleographs, and a watercolor, three are of chief interest in the context of Anna Whistler’s diaries: a sea piece (untitled in the will) by the Russian marine painter, Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovskii (1817–1901; see Image 178) and an oil portrait and a watercolor portrait of James Rogers.16 The other artists and works represented in the bequest were: Upper Kaeruthen, Landscape near Berne, Scene near Gosau in Austria, and The Innthal Tyrol by Pál Böhm (1839–1905); Bavarian Mountain by either Jakob Gauermann (1773–1843) or Friedrich Gauermann (1807–1862); Chiemscee Bavaria by George Mader (1824–1881); Berchtesgaden by Julius Lange (1817–1878); Winter Scene and Deer in Winter by Joseph Wolfram (b. 1860); The Inspruck in Tyrol and (after Rosa Bonheur) Cattle and Morning in the Highlands by Muller; Winter Scene in Russia by Linder; Mount Dachstein by Hermanstadter; A Winter Night by Wager;17 two paintings by Antonio Canaletto (1697–1768); two scenes in Holland by François Antoine Léon Fleury (1804–1858); works with no artist’s name supplied: the engravings Scottish Raid, Siege of Sebastopol, Relief of Lucknow, and Covenanters, and the painting The Lord’s Supper; four oleographs; and family portraits.18 The gross value of his personal estate amounted to some £24,000.19
James Rogers died on 11 July 1890. Funeral services were held at St. Stephen’s Church, Saltash, on 14 July, and he was buried in St. Stephen’s Churchyard. His grave monument is a grey granite pillar, rectangular in cross-section, with the top “weathered” four ways and a plinth at the bottom. The inscription reads: “In memory of James Rogers, M.D., formerly physician to the British Legation and Abouchoff Hospital at St. Petersburg, died at Saltash, 11 July 1890, aged eighty years.”20
Dr. William Rogers died on 7 April 1904, aged eighty-seven, and was buried with his brother.21 His widow, Emily, died on 24 October 1913, aged seventy-seven, and was buried with her daughter Emily, also in St. Stephen’s Churchyard.22
In the will of William Rogers, drawn up on 13 September 1899, we learn that Dora (Boathyde, Northam, Devon 1862 – Hurst Farm, Milford, Surrey 7 January 1916) had married Tudor Phillips Moreton (Labuan, Borneo 5 January 1865 – The Windmill, Sellindge, Ashford, Kent 10 April 1944), clerk in Holy Orders.23 The marriage took place on 2 June 1891.24 It seems likely that William J. Rogers, his son, who is not mentioned in the 1881 Census for Saltash, nor in either will, and for whom the lifeboat was named, predeceased his father and uncle.
Notes
1 I owe the deepest gratitude to Margaret P. McGrew (Roderick E. McGrew with the collaboration of Margaret P. McGrew, Encyclopedia of Medical History (New York: McGraw–Hill, 1984) and Colin Squires (of the Saltash Heritage), without whose help much of Dr. James Rogers’s biography could not have been written. Margaret McGrew, working with only his last name, established a firm identity for him from “The Provincial Medical Directory and General Medical Register,” in The [Annual] Medical Directory and General Medical Register for 1874 (London: J. and A. Churchill, 1874), p. 584 (hereafter, Medical Directory). Colin Squires then provided national census returns, description of and inscriptions on Dr. James Rogers’s monument, copies of wills, etc., accompanied by letters of perspicacious commentary.
2 Medical Directory, p. 584. The Obukhov Hospital, the oldest and largest in St. Petersburg, is located on the left bank of the Fontanka, near the Obukhov Bridge, from which it received its name. Catherine the Great entrusted the layout of the hospital to the Imperial Doctor Johann Heinrich Kelchen (1722–1800), who modeled it after the Vienna Hospital. Giacomo Quarenghi was its architect. The hospital was officially opened on 14 October 1784 (OS) (Antonov and Kobak, Sviatyni Sankt-Peterburga, vol. 2, pp. 221–222; T.A. Schrader, “Der Beitrag Deutcher Ärzte zur Entwickling der Krankenhäuser in St. Petersburg in 19. Jahrhundert” [“The Contribution of German Doctors to the Development of Hospitals in St. Petersburg in the 19th Century”], in Medizin und Pharmazie im 18. und 19. Jahrhundert [Medicine and Pharmacology in the 18th and 19th Centuries], ed. Ingrid Käster and Regine Pfrepper (Aachen, Germany: Shaker, 2000), pp. 129, 135).
3 Entry dated Dec. 17 in John S. Maxwell to Mrs. Hugh Maxwell, St. P., Dec. 15, 1843, NYHS: Maxwell Papers, no. 26; Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Lefevre, Sir George William.”
4 L.A. Eastwick to A.M. Eastwick [sealed but not addressed or postmarked], Alexandroffsky March 14/26 1849 Monday, Eastwick Letters.
5 Sanktpeterburgskie vedomosti (1848), issue number not recorded by me.
6 Medical Directory, p. 584.
7 Information for the household of William Rogers, 1871 Census for Saltash; Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 27 August 1991.
8 Medical Directory, p. 584.
9 Margaret and Roderick McGrew, London, to E. Harden, 1 February 1989.
10 Colin Squires to E. Harden, Saltash, Cornwall, 17 March 1989; information for the households of James Rogers and William Rogers, 1881 Census for Saltash.
11 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 17 March 1989.
12 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 12 November 1991; will of James Rogers, dated 7 March 1890 with codicil of 9 April 1890 (PRO).
13 IGI for Plymouth; Register of Marriage Banns published in the Parish Church of S.S. Nicholas and Faith, Saltash, 1881–1907, p. 13, Ref. DDP.203/1/15, Cornwall Record Office, Truro.
14 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 8 September 1991; will of James Rogers dated 7 March 1890 with codicil dated 9 April 1890.
15 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 12 November 1991, with references to Cyril Noall and Grahame Farr, Wreck and Rescue Round the Cornish Coast, vol. 1, The Story of the North Coast Lifeboats (Truro, UK: D. Bradford Barton, 1964), and Grahame Farr, Wreck and Rescue on the Coast of Devon: The Story of the South Devon Lifeboats (Truro, UK: D. Bradford Barton, 1968); The Royal Cornwall Gazette, December 1, 1892, p. 7.
16 By this time, as indicated in the will of James Rogers, Florence (Rogers) Longridge and Cecil Clement Longridge were residing in Conway, North Wales. Dora Rogers and Emily Chalmers Rogers were unmarried.
The sea piece by Aivazovskii and the watercolor portrait of James Rogers were bequeathed to Emily Chalmers Rogers, then residing with him. Emily Chalmers Rogers died intestate in 1893 (6 November, aged thirty-three) and her father administered her estate. The oil portrait of James Rogers was bequeathed to Florence (Rogers) Longridge. The Aivazovskii piece would be of interest, as Anna Whistler saw an exhibit of several of his works in 1847 at the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts; the watercolor portrait if it were by Thomas Wright (1792–1849; see Image 208), who executed the 1845 watercolor of Anna Whistler; and the oil portrait simply because we would then have James Rogers’s likeness.
17 The artist “after whom” Muller, who has not been identified, executed a painting was Rosa Bonheur (born Marie Rosalie Bonheur, 1822–1899). It has not been possible to identify Linder, Hermanstadter, or Wager.
18 Will of Dr. James Rogers, dated 7 March 1890, with a codicil dated 9 April 1890. He was a meticulous man. Which pictures were bequeathed to each niece is explained in the will, along with a statement about which rooms of his house the pictures were to be found in.
My brief article requesting information, entitled by the editor “Whistler, His Mother and the Doctor,” was kindly published in The West Briton and Royal Cornwall Gazette on 15 August 1991, but received no responses. An attempt to publish a notice about the Longridge family and the oil portrait of Dr. James Rogers in the Welsh edition of The Liverpool Daily Post and Echo in 1993 was acknowledged as received with no follow-up.
19 National Probate Calendar (UK), 1890.
20 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 17 March 1989, with description of grave monument of James Rogers and William Rogers; Western Daily Mercury (Plymouth), July 12, 1890; Burials Register, St. Stephens by Saltash, 1857–1893, p. 274, Ref. DDP.214/1/35, Cornwall Record Office, Truro.
21 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 17 March 1989, with inscriptions on the grave monument of James and William Rogers; Western Morning News (Plymouth), April 8, 1904.
22 Colin Squires, Saltash, Cornwall, to E. Harden, 17 March 1989.
23 National Probate Calendar (UK), 1944.
24 Marriage Register of the Church of S.S. Nicholas and Faith, Saltash, 1881–1913, p. 35, Ref. DDP.203/1/6, Cornwall Record Office, Truro; Royal Cornwall Gazette, June 4, 1891.
