ROE, GEORGE HAMILTON (1795–1873), physician, born on 18 May 1795 at New Ross, co. Wexford, was the eldest son of Peter Roe, a banker, and a cousin of George Roe, a distiller in Dublin. He began his medical studies somewhat late in life, after his marriage in 1817, and was admitted to the degree of M.D. in Edinburgh on 1 Aug. 1821, his inaugural thesis being ‘De respiratione.’ He then proceeded to Paris, returning later to London, where he was admitted a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians on 25 June 1823. He was still pursuing his studies at Trinity College, Dublin, where he graduated as B.A., M.A., M.B., and M.D., the last degree being conferred upon him in 1827. He was incorporated upon this degree at Oxford in 1828, being at that time a member of Magdalen Hall, afterwards Hertford College. He was admitted a candidate of the Royal College of Physicians of London on 13 April 1835, and a fellow on 25 June 1836.
He was appointed a physician to the Westminster Hospital in 1825, and, after serving for some time as a lecturer on medicine, he resigned in 1854. He was also a physician to the Hospital for Consumption and Diseases of the Chest, Brompton, to which he attached himself upon its foundation in 1841. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society in 1835, and served upon its council during 1841–2. He was Harveian orator at the Royal College of Physicians in 1856, and consiliarius in 1864, 1865, and 1866. He died on 13 April 1873, and was buried in the Brompton cemetery. His son, William Gason Roe, was a medical practitioner at Westminster.
Dr. Roe was an intelligent, well-informed, and practical physician. His decided manner won for him the confidence of his patients, but his private practice was small. He early gained the disapprobation of the members of his own profession by the promiscuous manner in which he gave advice gratuitously to those who could well afford to pay for it. He belonged to the Christian apostolic church.
He was the author of ‘A Treatise on the Hooping Cough and its complications, with Hints on the Management of Children,’ 8vo, London, 1836. The publication of this book gave rise to a fierce controversy between himself and Dr. Augustus Bozzi Granville [q. v.], who charged him with gross plagiarism.
[Obituary notices by Dr. C. J. B. Williams in the Proceedings of the Royal Medico-Chirurg. Soc. vii. 232; Autobiographical Recollections of the Medical Profession, by J. F. Clarke, London, 1874, pp. 506–9; Munk's Coll. of Phys.; Foster's Alumni Oxon.; information kindly given to the writer by Mrs. George Cowell, Dr. Roe's daughter-in-law.]
ROE, JOHN SEPTIMUS (1797–1878), explorer, seventh son of the Rev. James Roe, and his wife, Sophia Brookes, was born at Newbury, Berkshire, 8 May 1797. He was educated in the royal mathematical school at Christ's Hospital, and entered the navy as midshipman on 11 June 1813, being ‘apprenticed to Sir Christopher Cole, captain of H.M.S. Rippon.’ Under Captain Phillip Parker King he served in the expedition to survey the north-west coast of Australia in 1818, and again in King's fourth expedition in 1821. He was promoted lieutenant on 21 April 1822. He went through the Burmese war of 1825–7, for which he received the medal in 1851, and was engaged at the siege of Ava. In December 1828 Roe was appointed surveyor-general of Western Australia. Accompanied by his wife, he sailed in the Parmelia with Captain (afterwards Admiral Sir) James Stirling, and was one of the first to land, on 1 June 1829, in the colony of Western Australia. He held his appointment for forty-two years, and fulfilled its duties with eminent success, surveying and exploring the coasts and unknown tracts in the interior, until he made the long and eventful journey from the Swan river to the south coast at Cape Pasley in 1848–9. During the journey he received injuries that incapacitated him from further active work in the field. Accounts of this expedition, apparently the only productions from his pen, appeared in the ‘Journal of the Royal Geographical Society’ for 1852, and in Hooker's ‘Journal of Botany,’ vols. vi. and vii.
It was on Roe's advice that the sites for the capital, Perth and its port, Fremantle, were selected. He also founded the public museum at Perth and a mechanics' institute, of which he was for many years the president. He became a member of the executive and legislative council of the colony, was an associate of the Royal Geographical Society and a fellow of the Linnean Society (1 April 1828). He died at Perth, Western Australia, on 28 May 1878. He married in England, on 8 Jan. 1828, Matilda Bennett, who died on 22 July 1870.
[Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, new ser. i. 277; Mennell's Dict. Australasian Biogr.; Britten and Boulger's British Botanists; Tablettes Biographiques; Royal Society's Catalogue; information kindly supplied by Robert Little, receiver, Christ's Hospital, and by B. H. Woodward, curator of the Perth Museum.]
