Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Routh, Randolph Isham
ROUTH, Sir RANDOLPH ISHAM (1785?–1858), commissary-general in the army, son of Richard Routh, chief justice of Newfoundland, was born at Poole, Dorset, apparently in 1785, and educated at Eton. He had intended to go up to Cambridge, but on the sudden death of his father entered the commissariat department of the army in November 1805, being stationed first in Jamaica. He was engaged in the Walcheren expedition in 1809. He served afterwards through the Peninsular war; became deputy commissary-general on 9 March 1812, and was senior commissariat officer at Waterloo in 1815. After the peace he was on the Mediterranean station, and from 1822 in the West Indies, spending some time in Jamaica. On 15 Aug. 1826 he was made commissary-general, and was at once sent to Canada, where he did good service in the rising of 1837–8; he was a member of the executive council, and was knighted for his general services in March 1841. He returned to England on half-pay in February 1843. From November 1845 to October 1848 he was employed in Ireland in superintending the distribution of relief during the famine; for this service he was created K.C.B. on 29 April 1848. He died in London, at 19 Dorset Square, on 29 Nov. 1858.
Routh married, first, on 26 Dec. 1815, at Paris, Adèle Joséphine Laminière, daughter of one of Bonaparte's civil officers; secondly, in 1830, at Quebec, Marie Louise (1810–1891), daughter of Judge Taschereau and sister of Cardinal Taschereau (Times, 5 Jan. 1892).
He was the author of ‘Observations on the Commissariat Field Service and Home Defences’ (1845, and 2nd ed. London, 1852), which has been described as a vade mecum for the commissariat officer, and is quoted as an authority by Kinglake in his ‘Invasion of the Crimea.’
[Gent. Mag. 1859, i. 82; Ann. Register, 1858; Appleton's Cyclop. of American Biogr.; Allibone's Dictionary of Authors; Army Lists after 1819; official information.]