942 James Thorold Rogers

Constituency : Southwark  1880-85,  Bermondsey  1885-6

James  was  the  other  Liberal  victor  at  Bermondsey.

James  was   a  doctor's  son  from  Hampshire . He  was  educated  at  King's  College  London  and  Oxford. He  was  ordained  and  became curate  of  a  church  in  Oxford  before  turning  to  academia. He  became the  first  person  to  legally withdraw  from  his  clerical  vows  under  the  Clerical  Disabilities  Relief  Act  in  1870. In  the 1860s  he  taught classics  and  philosophy  at  Oxford. In  1862  he became  a  professor  of  political economy  and  a  friend  and  admirer  of  Cobden  who  became  his  brother-in-law  but  he  was  voted  out  in  1868  after  his  strictures  on  the  governance  of  Oxford  and  radical  political  opinions. He  was  President  on  the  first   day  of  the   Co-operative  Congress  in  1875.  He  was  also  a  historian  stressing  the  economic  basis  behind  political  action.  He  was  a  bit  too  wayward  to  confine  himself  to  one  doctrinal  school  but  always  remained  loyal  to  free  trade.In  1876  his  son  committed  suicide  but  James  never  accepted  the  fact  maintaining  it  was  a  gymnastic  experiment  gone  wrong.

James  got  into  a  bit  of  trouble  in  his  first  real  parliamentary  speech  when  he  appeared  to  refer  to  refer  to  Charles  Bradlaugh  as  "vermin".

In  1882  James  inspected  a  mining  property  in  Colorado  for  Crooke's  Mining  and  Smelting  Company  Ltd  and  subsequently  joined  the  Board.  By  1885  he  was  describing  it  as  a  "gigantic  swindle"  and  rueing  his  connection  with  it.  The  Economist  was  unympathetic :
"Mr  Thorold  Rogers  is  not  a  mining  expert, nor  as  far  as  we  know  has  he  had  any  experience  in  mining  affairs. What  those  who  had  approached  him  wished  , therefore, was  not  the  benefit  of  special  experience  in  the  conduct  of  the  business  of  the  company, but  the  advantage  of  a  name  which  would  favourably  impress  investors  and  induce  them  to  engage  in  a  speculation  of  which  they  would  otherwise  have  fought  shy. Of  this  Mr  Rogers  could  hardly  have  been  ignorant".

James  supported  the  Tithe-Rent  Charge  Redemption  Bill  of  1886.  That  same  year  he  moved  to  switch  local  taxation  from  earnings  to  capital  value.

James  was  defeated  in  1886  and  recovered  his  Professorship  at  Oxford  where  he  encouraged  the  view  that  it  was  restitution  for  the  earlier  injustice.

In  1889  James  was  fined  for  allowing  his  dog  to  run  in  a  park  without  a  muzzle  and  attack  another  dog.

James  was  a  prolific  author  on  economics  with  books  covering  agricultural  prices, wages  and  industrial  history.

He  died  in  1890  aged  67.