'Dr. Davidson: His Heresies, Contradictions, and Plagiarisms. By Two Graduates' [namely, Mellor and Rogers] (1867). Long after, Rogers wrote of Davidson: 'The controversies of later years separated us, but they never led me to forget or underrate the benefit I derived from his patient, painstaking, and most valuable labours' (Autobiog. 1903, p. 70); this contradicts the tone of the, pamphlet, but Rogers was a man who mellowed in many respects as time went on. In 1865 he was chairman of the Lancashire Congregational Union. In the same year he removed to the pastorate of Clapham (Gratton Square) congregational church. Here he ministered till 1900. His denomination honoured him by making him chairman of the Surrey Congregational Union (1868), of the London Congregational Union, and of the Congregational Union of England and Wales (1874). His influence extended beyond his own body, till he came to be regarded, almost as Calamy had been in the early eighteenth century, as the representative of sober yet convinced nonconformity, and was trusted as such by leading authorities in church and state. His friendship with Gladstone was not merely political, but rested on a common feeling of the necessary religious basis for public movements. Edinburgh University made him an honorary D.D. in 1895. He retained his interest in public affairs and his power of address almost to the last. After a short period of failing health he died at his residence, 109 North Side, Clapham Common, on 20 August 1911, and was buried at Morden cemetery, Raynes Park.
He married in 1846 EUzabeth (d. 1909), daughter of Thomas Greenall (1788-1851), minister of Bethesda Church, Burnley (1814r-48). His three sons and one daughter survived him.
His publications include: 1. 'The Life of Christ,' 1849 (twelve lectures). 2. 'The Ritual Movement. A Reason for Disestablishment,' 1869. 3. 'Why ought not the State to give Religious Education ?' 1872. 4. 'Nonconformity as a Spiritual Force,' 1874. 6. 'Facts and Fallacies re-relating to Disestablishment,' 1875. 6. 'Anglican Church Portraits,' 1876 (a book of merit). 7. 'The Church Systems of England in the Nineteenth Century,' 1881, 1891. 8. 'Friendly Disendowment,' 1881. 9. 'Clericalism and Congregationalism,' 1882 (Jubilee lecture. Congregational Union). 10. 'Present-day Religion and Theology; . . . Down-grade Controversy,' 1888. 11. 'The Forward Movement of the Christian Church,' 1893. 12. ' The Gospel in the Epistles,' 1897. 13. ’The Christian Ideal: a Study for the Times,' 1898. 14. 'An Autobiography,' 1903 (five portraits; vivid impressions, with lack of dates). 15. 'The Unchanging Faith,' 1907 (his best book; has a Quaker publisher). He also edited the 'Congregationalist' (1879-86) and the 'Congregational Review' (1887–91).
[Autobiography, 1903; The Times, 21 Aug. 1911; Who's Who, 1911; Congregational Year Book, 1912; B. Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity, 1891, ii. 159, iv. 161, 245.]
ROLLS, CHARLES STEWART (1877–1910), engineer and aviator, born on 28 Aug. 1877 at 35 Hill Street, Berkeley Square, London, was third son of John Allan Rolls, first Baron Llangattock (1837–1912), of The Hendre, Monmouth, by his wife Georgiana Marcia, fourth daughter of Sir Charles FitzRoy Maclean, ninth baronet, of Morvaren. After education at Eton from 1890 to 1893, where he specialised in practical electricity, he matriculated from Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1895, graduating B.A. in mechanical engineering and applied sciences in 1898, and proceeding M.A. in 1902. Rolls was a cyclist from boyhood, riding the high bicycle, and obtaining considerable reputation in the amateur racing field; he won his 'half-blue' for cycling at Cambridge in 1896, and was captain of the university racing team in 1897.
After leaving the university Rolls made a study of practical engineering; he spent some time at the L. & N. W. railway works at Crewe, obtained a third engineer's (marine) certificate and for a time was engineer on his father's yacht 'Ave Maria.' Already in his first year as an undergraduate Rolls had interested himself in the then recent French invention of the motor car. In Dec. 1895 he purchased and imported into England a 3¾ h.p. Peugeot car, then the most powerful made. Sir David Salomons, the Hon. Evelyn Ellis, and Mr. T. R. B. Elliot were the only Englishmen who previously owned automobiles. The traffic legislation at the time forbade self-propelled vehicles to travel faster than four miles an hour, and a man carrying a red flag had to precede them on highways. On procuring his car Rolls set out from Victoria station, London, for Cambridge, and was stopped by a policeman owing to the absence of a red flag. He made the journey to Cambridge in 11 ¾ hours — travelling at 4 ½ miles an hour. In Aug. 1896 the Locomotives on Highways Act freed motor traffic of some of its restrictions. The maximum speed,
