# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rose, Henry John

​ROSE, HENRY JOHN (1800–1873), theologian and scholar, born at Uckfield, Sussex, on 3 Jan. 1800, was younger son of William Rose (1763–1844), then curate and schoolmaster in that parish, and afterwards vicar of Glynde, Sussex; Hugh James Rose [q. v.] was his elder brother. He was educated by his father, and admitted pensioner at St. Peter's College, Cambridge, on 25 June 1817, but migrated to St. John's College on 3 Oct. 1818. He graduated B.A. in 1821, proceeded M.A. in 1824, B.D. in 1831, and on 26 June 1851 was admitted ad eundem at Oxford. On 6 April 1824 he was admitted to a fellowship at St. John's, Cambridge, and held it until April 1838, residing in the college until about 1836 and devoting himself to the study of classics and divinity. He became a good German and Hebrew scholar, and at a later date mastered, unaided, the Syriac language. For a short time (March 1832 to September 1833) he was minister of St. Edward's, Cambridge, and in 1833 was Hulsean lecturer.
In the summer of 1834 Rose discharged the duties of his brother Hugh, who was in ill-health, as divinity professor in Durham University, and about 1836 he came to London and worked for his brother in the parish of St. Thomas, Southwark. In 1837 he was appointed by his college to the valuable rectory of Houghton Conquest, near Ampthill in Bedfordshire, and in 1866 obtained the archdeaconry of Bedford, which preferments he held until his death. At Houghton he superintended the renovation of the school-buildings and the restoration of the church. In this pleasant retreat Rose's brother-in-law, Dean Burgon, passed all his long vacations for about thirty years, and many English and continental scholars made the acquaintanceship of the rector. Rose was a churchman of the old conservative type, a collector of books, and an industrious writer. His library included many of Bishop Berkeley's manuscripts, which he allowed Professor A. C. Fraser to edit. He died on 31 Jan. 1873, and was buried in the south-eastern angle of the churchyard at Houghton Conquest. He married, at St. Pancras new church, on 24 May 1838, Sarah Caroline (1812–1889), eldest daughter of Thomas Burgon of the British Museum, and sister of John William Burgon, dean of Chichester. Their children were two sons, Hugh James and William Francis, both in orders, and three daughters. A spirited crayon drawing of Rose was made in 1839 by E. U. Eddis, R.A.
Though his separate publications were only two—‘The Law of Moses in connection with the History and Character of the Jews,’ Hulsean Lectures, 1834, and ‘Answer to the Case of the Dissenters,’ 1834—Rose performed a considerable amount of literary work. He helped largely his brother's edition of Parkhurst's ‘Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament’ (1829), and edited for him from about 1836 the ‘British Magazine.’ For his brother he also edited the first volume of Rose's ‘New General Biographical Dictionary,’ the preface being dated ​from Houghton Conquest in February 1840. He was one of the joint editors of the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana,’ and wrote portions of the work. In the cabinet edition of that encyclopædia his name is given as one of the authors of the ‘History of the Christian Church from the Thirteenth Century to the Present Day,’ and he reprinted in 1858 his article on ‘Ecclesiastical History from 1700 to 1815.’ He translated Dr. Augustus Neander's ‘History of the Christian Religion and Church during the Three First Centuries,’ vol. i. (1831) and vol. ii. (1841); wrote the second essay in the ‘Replies to Essays and Reviews’ (1862), dealing with ‘Bunsen, the Critical School, and Dr. Williams;’ was engaged on Speaker Denison's ‘Commentary on the Bible,’ contributed to Smith's ‘Dictionary of the Bible,’ to the ‘Quarterly,’ ‘English,’ and ‘Contemporary’ reviews, the ‘Literary Churchman,’ and the ‘Transactions’ of the Bedfordshire Archæological Society (on Bishop Berkeley's MSS.); and he was one of the revisers of the authorised version of the Old Testament.
Hugh James Rose (1840–1878), his eldest son, born in December 1840, matriculated from Oriel College, 20 Oct. 1860, and graduated B.A. 1865, M.A. 1867. He was at first chaplain to the forces at Dover, from 1873 to 1875 was chaplain to the mining companies at Linares, and was then stationed as chaplain at Jerez and Cadiz. Tall and dark in hair and eyes, and in his stately bearing resembling a Spaniard, he corresponded for the ‘Times’ on social subjects in Spain, and contributed essays to ‘Temple Bar’ on the same topics. He published in 1875 two volumes on ‘Untrodden Spain and her Black Country,’ parts of which had appeared in ‘Macmillan's Magazine.’ They were accepted as the best books in English on Spanish peasant life, and passed through two editions. His volumes ‘Among the Spanish People’ (1877) were the result of travel through nearly all the Peninsula, living with the peasants, whose dialect he had learnt. About 1876 he returned to England in delicate health, and died at Guildford on 6 July 1878, leaving two children. He was buried by his father's side at Houghton Conquest.
W. P. C.