Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rogers, Francis James Newman
ROGERS, FRANCIS JAMES NEWMAN (1791–1851), legal writer, son of the Rev. James Rogers of Rainscombe, Wiltshire, by Catherine, youngest daughter of Francis Newman of Cadbury House, Somerset, was born in 1791. He was educated at Eton, matriculated from Oriel College, Oxford, on 5 May 1808, graduated B.A. in 1812, and M.A. in 1815. He was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn on 21 May 1816, and to the Inner Temple ad eundem in 1820. He went the western circuit and practised in the common-law courts and as a special pleader. On 24 Feb. 1837 he was created a king's counsel, and soon after was elected a bencher of the Inner Temple. From 1835 to his death he was recorder of Exeter, and from 1842 deputy judge-advocate-general. He died at 1 Upper Wimpole Street, London, on 19 July 1851, and was buried in the Temple Church on 25 July, having married, on 29 June 1822, Julia Eleanora, third daughter of William Walter Yea of Pyrland Hall, Somerset, by whom he had three sons and two daughters. Two of the sons, Walter Lacy Rogers (d. 1885) and Francis Newman Rogers (d. 1859), were barristers.
He was the author of: 1. ‘The Law and Practice of Elections, with Analytical Tables and a Copious Index,’ 1820 (dedicated to Sir W. D. Best, knt.); 3rd edit. as altered by the Reform Acts, 1835; 9th edit. with F. S. P. Wolferstan, 1859; 10th edit. by F. S. P. Wolferstan, 1865; 11th edit. (with the New Reform Act), 1868; 15th edit. by M. Powell, J. C. Carter, and J. S. Sandars, 1890; 16th edit. by S. H. Day, 1892. 2. ‘Parliamentary Reform Act, 2 Will. IV, c. 45, with Notes containing a Complete Digest of Election Law as altered by that Statute,’ 1832. 3. ‘A Practical Arrangement of Ecclesiastical Law,’ 1840; 2nd edit. 1849. 4. ‘The Marriage Question: an Attempt to discover the True Scripture Argument in the Question of Marriage with a Wife's Sister,’ 1855.
[Gent. Mag. 1851, ii. 322–3; Illustr. London News, 1851, xix. 138; Masters of the Bench of the Inner Temple, 1883, p. 102.]