William Roscoe was an English

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 historian

Historian

A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human race; as well as the study of all history in time. If the individual is...

 and miscellaneous writer.

Life

He was born in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, where his father, a market garden

Market garden

A market garden is the relatively small-scale production of fruits, vegetables and flowers as cash crops, frequently sold directly to consumers and restaurants. It is distinguishable from other types of farming by the diversity of crops grown on a small area of land, typically, from under one acre ...

er, kept a public house called the Bowling Green at Mount Pleasant

Mount Pleasant, Liverpool

Mount Pleasant is a street in Liverpool City Centre. It is towards one end of Hope Street, and is the location of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral.57 Mount Pleasant Street is referenced in the song Weather With You by Crowded House....

. Roscoe left school at the age of twelve, having learned all that his schoolmaster could teach. He assisted his father in the work of the garden, but spent his leisure time on reading and study. "This mode of life," he says, "gave health and vigour to my body, and amusement and instruction to my mind; and to this day I well remember the delicious sleep which succeeded my labors, from which I was again called at an early hour. If I were now asked whom I consider to be the happiest of the human race, I should answer, those who cultivate the earth by their own hands." At fifteen he began to look for a suitable career. A month's trial of bookselling was unsuccessful, and in 1769 he was articled to a solicitor

Solicitor

Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

. Although a diligent student of law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

, he continued to read the classics, and made the acquaintance with the language and literature of Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 which was to dominate his life.

In 1774 he went into business as a lawyer, and in 1781 married Jane, second daughter of William Griffies, a Liverpool tradesman; they had seven sons and three daughters. Roscoe had the courage to denounce the Africa

Africa

Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...

n slave trade in his native town, where much of the wealth came from slavery. Roscoe was a Unitarian and Presbyterian. His outspokenness against the slave trade meant that abolitionism

Abolitionism

Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...

 and Presbyterianism

Presbyterianism

Presbyterianism refers to a number of Christian churches adhering to the Calvinist theological tradition within Protestantism, which are organized according to a characteristic Presbyterian polity. Presbyterian theology typically emphasizes the sovereignty of God, the authority of the Scriptures,...

 were linked together in the public mind.

In 1796 Roscoe gave up legal practice, and toyed with the idea of going to the bar. Between 1793 and 1800 he paid much attention to agriculture, and helped to reclaim Chat Moss

Chat Moss

Chat Moss is a large area of peat bog that makes up 30 percent of the City of Salford, in Greater Manchester, England. It is north of the River Irwell, to the west of Manchester, and occupies an area of about...

, near Manchester

Manchester

Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...

. He also succeeded in restoring to good order the affairs of a banking house in which his friend William Clark, then resident in Italy, was a partner. This led to his introduction to the business, which eventually proved disastrous.

Roscoe was elected member of parliament for Liverpool in 1806, but the House of Commons

British House of Commons

The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, which also comprises the Sovereign and the House of Lords . Both Commons and Lords meet in the Palace of Westminster. The Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 650 members , who are known as Members...

 was not for him, and at the dissolution in the following year he stood down. During his brief stay however, he was able to cast his vote in favour of the successful abolition of the slave trade.

In the early 1800s, he led a group of Liverpool botanists who created the Liverpool Botanic Garden as a private garden, initially located near Mount Pleasant, which was then on the outskirts of the City. In the 1830s the garden was relocated to Wavertree Botanic Gardens.

The commercial troubles of 1816 brought into difficulties the banking house with which he was connected, and forced the sale of his collection of books and pictures. Dr SH Spiker, the king of Prussia

Prussia

Prussia was a German kingdom and historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia shaped the history...

's librarian, visited Roscoe at this difficult time. Roscoe said he still desired to write a biography of Erasmus but lacked both leisure and youth. The project was never carried out. After five years struggling to discharge the liabilities of the bank, the action of a small number of creditors forced the partners into bankruptcy

Bankruptcy

Bankruptcy is a legal status of an insolvent person or an organisation, that is, one that cannot repay the debts owed to creditors. In most jurisdictions bankruptcy is imposed by a court order, often initiated by the debtor....

 in 1820. For a time Roscoe was in danger of arrest, but ultimately he received honourable discharge. On the dispersal of his library, the volumes most useful to him were secured by friends and placed in the Liverpool Athenaeum. The sum of £2500 was also invested for his benefit.

Having now resigned commercial pursuits entirely, he found a pleasant task in the arrangement of the great library at Holkham

Holkham

Holkham is a village and civil parish in the north-west of the county of Norfolk, England. Besides the small village, the parish includes the major stately home and estate of Holkham Hall, and an attractive beach at Holkham Gap...

, the property of his friend Thomas Coke.

Roscoe showed considerable moral courage as well as devotion to study. He had many friends. Posterity is not likely to endorse the verdict of Horace Walpole, who thought Roscoe the best of our historians, but his books on Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...

 and Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X

Pope Leo X , born Giovanni di Lorenzo de' Medici, was the Pope from 1513 to his death in 1521. He was the last non-priest to be elected Pope. He is known for granting indulgences for those who donated to reconstruct St. Peter's Basilica and his challenging of Martin Luther's 95 Theses...

 remained important contributions to historical literature.

Works

His poem, Mount Pleasant, was written when he was sixteen, and together with other verses, now forgotten, won the esteem of good critics.

He wrote a long poem published in two parts called The Wrongs of Africa (1787–1788), and entered into a controversy with an ex-Roman Catholic priest called Fr Raymond Harris, who tried to justify the slave trade through the Bible

Bible

The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...

 (and was generously paid for his efforts by Liverpool businessmen involved with the slave trade). Roscoe also wrote a pamphlet in 1788 entitled 'A General View of the African Slave Trade'. Roscoe was also a political pamphleteer, and like many other Liberals of the day hailed the promise of liberty in the French Revolution

French Revolution

The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...

.

Meanwhile he had pursued his Italian studies, and had carried out research, which resulted in his Life of Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici

Lorenzo de' Medici was an Italian statesman and de facto ruler of the Florentine Republic during the Italian Renaissance. Known as Lorenzo the Magnificent by contemporary Florentines, he was a diplomat, politician and patron of scholars, artists and poets...

, which appeared in 1796, and gained him a reputation among contemporary historians. It was often reprinted, and translations in French

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

, German

German language

German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....

 and other languages show that its popularity was not confined to Britain. Angelo Fabroni

Angelo Fabroni

Angelo Fabroni was an Italian biographer and historian.He was born at Marradi in Tuscany to Alessandro and Iancinta Fabroni, of a banking family formerly of great fortune. After studying with tutors and at Faenza, in 1750 he entered the Collegio Bandinelli in Rome, founded for the education of...

, who had intended to translate his own Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

 life of Lorenzo, abandoned the idea and persuaded Gaetano Mecherini to undertake an Italian version of Roscoe's work.

His translation of Luigi Tansillo

Luigi Tansillo

Luigi Tansillo was an Italian poet of the Petrarchian and Marinist schools. Born in Venosa, he entered the service of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo in 1536 and in 1540 entered the Accademia degli Umidi , afterwards called della Fiorentina.He was associated with the Court of Naples and served as Captain...

's Nurse appeared in 1798, and went through several editions. It is dedicated in a sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

 to his wife, who had practised the precepts of the Italian poet.

The Life and Pontificate of Leo the Tenth appeared in 1805, and was a natural sequel to his previous work of history. The new work, whilst it maintained its author's fame, did not meet with so favourable a reception as the Life of Lorenzo. It was frequently reprinted, and the insertion of the Italian translation in the Index did not prevent its circulation even in the papal states.

He wrote the Sonnet on Parting with his Books on the 1816 sale of his library. In 1822 he issued an appendix of illustrations to his Lorenzo and also a Memoir of Richard Robert Jones

Dic Aberdaron

Dic Aberdaron was a Welsh traveller and polyglot. He had little or no formal education, but was reputed to have taught himself 14 or 15 languages, both ancient and modern, including Latin at the age of 11....

 of Aberdaron

Aberdaron

Aberdaron is a community and former fishing village at the western tip of the Llŷn Peninsula in the Welsh county of Gwynedd. It lies west of Pwllheli and south west of Caernarfon, and has a population of 1,019. It is sometimes referred to as the "Land's End of Wales"...

, a remarkable self-taught linguist. The year 1824 was memorable for the death of his wife and the publication of his edition of the works of Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope

Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...

, which involved him in a controversy with William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles

William Lisle Bowles was an English poet and critic.-Life and career:He was born at King's Sutton, Northamptonshire, where his father was vicar. At the age of fourteen he entered Winchester College, the headmaster at the time being Dr Joseph Warton...

. His versatility was shown by the appearance of a folio monograph on the Monandrian Plants, which was published in 1828. The last part came out after his recovery from a stroke.

In addition to these, Roscoe wrote tracts on penal jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

, and contributed to the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature

Royal Society of Literature

The Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...

 and of the Linnean Society. The first collected edition of his Poetical Works was published in 1857, and is sadly incomplete, omitting, with other verses known to be from his pen, the Butterfly's Ball, a fantasy, which has charmed thousands of children since it appeared in 1807. Other verses are in Poems for Youth, by a Family Circle (1820).

Family

Roscoe and his wife had seven sons and three daughters, including William Stanley Roscoe (1782–1843), a poet, Thomas Roscoe (1791–1871), translator from Italian, and Henry

Henry Roscoe (legal writer)

-Life:The youngest son of William Roscoe, he was born at Allerton Hall, near Liverpool, on 17 April 1800. He was educated by private tutors, and in 1817 was articled to Messrs. Stanistreet & Eden, solicitors, Liverpool. In January 1819 he moved to London and began studying for the bar, almost...

 (1800–1836), a legal writer who wrote his father's biography. Henry's son Henry Enfield Roscoe

Henry Enfield Roscoe

Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe, FRS was an English chemist. He is particularly noted for early work on vanadium and for photochemical studies.- Life and work :...

 (1833–1915) was a chemist and vice-chancellor of the University of London. Daughter Mary Anne was known as a poet by her married name Mary Anne Jevons, and was the mother of William Stanley Jevons

William Stanley Jevons

William Stanley Jevons was a British economist and logician.Irving Fisher described his book The Theory of Political Economy as beginning the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics as a science concerned with quantities is necessarily mathematical...

.

Further reading

The Life by his son Henry Roscoe (2 vols., London, 1906) contains full details of Roscoe's career, and there are references to him in the Autobiographical Sketches of De Quincey, and in Washington Irving

Washington Irving

Washington Irving was an American author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century. He was best known for his short stories "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" and "Rip Van Winkle", both of which appear in his book The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. His historical works...

's Sketch Book.

External links

• The Wrongs of Africa, Book the First: The full text of Book One of Roscoe's Wrongs of Africa (1787-1788), edited by Brycchan Carey
• The Wrongs of Africa, Book the Second: The full text of Book Two of Roscoe's Wrongs of Africa (1787-1788), edited by Brycchan Carey
• The Life and Experiences of Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe (1906) - With information on William Roscoe
• Ohio tourist town named for William Roscoe
• Full text of The Butterfly's Ball by William Roscoe, McLoughlin Bros. & Co.

Attribution