Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 49.djvu/352

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Rowe
346
Rowe

allowed to end his days in prison (Commons' Journals, viii. 319). He died in the Tower on 25 Dec. 1661, and was buried on 27 Dec. at Hackney.

Rowe married three times: (1) Mary Yeomant (mentioned above); (2) Dorothy, daughter of—Hodges of Bristow, who died in September 1650; (3) Mary, daughter of Rowland Wiseman of London, and widow of Dr. Crisp (Herald and Genealogist, ii. 61, 156). His son, Samuel Rowe, was a fellow of All Souls' College, Oxford (Foster, Alumni Oxon. 1st ser. p. 1284). Anthony Wood appears to confuse Owen Rowe with his brother Francis (Fasti, ii. 136). Francis Rowe was bound apprentice to Francis Lane, clothworker, of London, on 28 Jan. 1613, became captain in the green regiment of London trained bands, and in 1646 colonel of a regiment employed in Ireland. He served in Cromwell's expedition as scoutmaster-general, and died at Youghal about December 1649. On 22 June 1650 parliament granted his widow a pension of 1l. a week (Commons' Journals, vi. 428; Report on the Duke of Portland's MSS. i. 95; Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. pp. 126, 151, 168, 7th Rep. p. 78). Probably he was the author of the ‘Military Memoirs of Col. John Birch,’ printed by the Camden Society in 1873 (preface, p. v).

Both Francis and Owen Rowe are frequently confused with William Rowe, who also held the post of scoutmaster-general for a time (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1650, p. 238), and was subsequently secretary to the Irish and Scottish committees of the council of state (ib. 1653–4, p. 459). Many letters from him to Cromwell are printed by Nickolls (Original Letters and Papers of State addressed to Oliver Cromwell, 1743, fol.). He married Alice, daughter of Thomas Scott, the regicide (ib. p. 27; Biogr. Brit. p. 3528).

[Noble's Lives of the Regicides, 1798, ii. 150; Herald and Genealogist, ii. 61, 156, 1864; Records of St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, Archæologia, l. 23–5; other authorities mentioned in the article.]

C. H. F.

ROWE, RICHARD (1828–1879), author, son of Thomas Rowe, a Wesleyan methodist minister (1785–1835), by Susannah Jackson (1802–1873), was born at Spring Gardens, Doncaster, on 9 March 1828. After attending several private schools he emigrated to Australia, and described his interesting experiences there in contributions to the Australian press. Returning to Great Britain, he betook himself to journalism, and for some time held a position in Edinburgh on the ‘Scotsman.’ Subsequently he worked in London, where he studied closely the conditions of life among the poor. He embodied some results of his researches in his pathetic ‘Episodes in an Obscure Life,’ 1871, 3 vols., which had a wide circulation. He published also twenty stories for children, some of which appeared under the pseudonyms of Charles Camden and Edward Howe. He died in Middlesex Hospital, London, on 9 Dec. 1879, after undergoing an operation for cancer of the tongue, and was buried in Highgate cemetery on 15 Dec. He married, on 12 May 1860, Mary Ann Yates, daughter of Jonathan Patten, by whom he left four children.

[The Day of Rest, February 1880, pp. 116–21, with portrait; Times, 15 Dec. 1879, p. 11; Athenæum, 13 Dec. 1879, p. 765; Academy, 20 Dec. 1879, p. 446.]

G. C. B.

ROWE, SAMUEL (1793–1853), topographer, born on 11 Nov. 1793, was second son of Benjamin Rowe, yeoman, of Sherford Barton, Brixton, Devonshire, by his wife, Mary Avent, of St. Budeaux in the same county. This branch of the Rowe family had been settled at Brixton for several generations. After attending the neighbouring grammar school of Plympton, Samuel was apprenticed in 1810 to a bookseller at Kingsbridge, Devonshire. In 1813 his father purchased for him an old-established bookselling business at Plymouth, in which he was soon afterwards joined by his younger brother, Joshua Brooking Rowe. His leisure was devoted to study and literary pursuits. In 1817 he was elected a member, and in 1821 the secretary, of the Plymouth Institution, which was then the centre of all literary, scientific, and artistic life in South Devon. In 1822 he decided to give up bookselling and take holy orders. He accordingly matriculated at Cambridge as a member of Jesus College, and graduated B.A. in 1826 and M.A. in 1833. After serving as curate of St. Andrew, Plymouth, he was presented to the incumbency of St. Budeaux, and in 1832 he became the first minister of a new church, St. Paul, at Stonehouse, Plymouth. The incumbency of St. George, the older church of Stonehouse, shortly afterwards falling vacant, he was transferred to it, the gift, like the other preferments, being with the vicar of St. Andrew, the Rev. John Hatchard. Here he stayed until 1835, when out of seventy candidates he was elected vicar of Crediton, Devonshire. He died at Crediton on 15 Sept. 1853, and was buried in the churchyard. By his marriage, in 1829, to Sydney, daughter of Adam Neale, M.D. [q. v.], he left a son and five daughters.

Of Rowe's numerous writings, the most