Charles Rogers

Charles Rogers (1825–1890) was a 19th-century Scottish minister and prolific author. In the second half of his life, he repeatedly ran into trouble for setting up publication societies from which he gained financial benefit.

Life

The only son of James Roger(s) (1767–1849), minister of Dunino in Fife, he was born in the manse there on 18 April 1825; His mother, who died at his birth, was Jane, second daughter of William Haldane, minister successively at Glenisla and Kingoldrum. After attending the parish school at Denino for seven years, he matriculated at the University of St Andrews in 1839, and spent seven years there. Licensed by the presbytery of St Andrews in June 1846, he was employed in the capacity of assistant minister at Western Anstruther, Kinglassie, Abbotshall, Dunfermline, Ballingry, and Carnoustie. He then opened a preaching station at the Bridge of Allan, and from January 1855 until 11 August 1863 was chaplain of the garrison at Stirling Castle.

During his time in Stirling, Rogers was elected in 1861 as a member of the town council, and took part in the erection of the Wallace Monument. In 1855 he inaugurated at Stirling a short-lived Scottish Literary Institute. In 1862 he opened the British Christian Institute, for the dissemination of religious tracts and issued a weekly paper, The Workman's Friend, and then monthly serials, The Briton and The Recorder. The scheme ended in 1863, when he founded and edited The Stirling Gazette, but its career was brief. In the aftermath of acrimony he resigned his chaplaincy, went to England, and became a writer. Our Eternal Destiny, 1868.

Poetical The Modern Scottish Minstrel, 6 vols. 1855–7. The Sacred Minstrel, 1859. The Golden Sheaf, 1867. Lyra Britannica, 1867. Life and Songs of the Baroness Nairne, 1869.

Autobiographical and general Issues of Religious Rivalry, 1866. Leaves from my Autobiography, 1876. The Serpent's Track, 1880. Parting Words to the Members of the Royal Historical Society, 1881. Threads of Thought, 1888. The Oak, 1868.

Editions Rogers also edited:

Aytoun's Poems, 1844. Campbell's Poems, 1870. Sir John Scot's Staggering State of Scottish Statesmen, 1872. Poetical Remains of King James, 1873. Hay's Estimate of the Scottish Nobility. Glen's Poems, 1874. Diocesan Registers of Glasgow, 2 vols. 1875 (with Joseph Bain). Boswelliana, 1874. Register of the Church of Crail, 1877. Events in the North of Scotland, 1635 to 1645, 1877. Chartulary of the Cistercian Priory of Coldstream, 1879. Rental-book of the Cistercian Abbey of Cupar-Angus, 1880. The Earl of Stirling's Register of Royal Letters, 2 vols. 1884–5.

Family On 14 December 1854, Rogers married Isabella Bain (d. 1880), the eldest daughter of John Bain of St Andrews.