page_title: John Etherington Welch Rolls
section_title: Life
hierarchical_section_title: John Etherington Welch Rolls / Life
caption_attribution_description: Eight colour printed woodblock plate (Baxter process) of the Hendre in Monmouthshire. pub 1880 see here Published by William Mackenzie, London.writing by the Rev. Francis Orpen and engravings and plates by Alexander Francis Lydon (1836-1917), Benjamin Fawcett (1808-1893), published in 'A series of picturesque views of country seats of noblemen and gentlemen of Great Britain and Ireland'
context_page_description: John Etherington Welch Rolls was a High Sheriff of Monmouthshire, art collector, Deputy Lieutenant and Justice of the Peace. Rolls was President of, and co-founded the Monmouth Show.
context_section_description: Rolls was born in 1807 to John Rolls of The Hendre, near Monmouth, and his wife Martha. On 26 May 1833 he married Elizabeth Long who was the granddaughter of the 7th Earl of Northesk. Rolls became High Sheriff of Monmouthshire in 1842.
  Rolls and his wife had several children but only one son, John Allan Rolls, who became 1st Baron Llangattock. Rolls' brother Alexander married the actress Helen Barry.
  Rolls was responsible for extending the size of The Hendre using the services of Thomas Henry Wyatt. His architect created a new open roofed entrance hall for the building and the south wing and the park were improved. In 1877 Wyatt was again employed to add rooms for billiards, dining and smoking, as well as a coach house to replace the demolished old stables.
  In 1863 Rolls' long service as a deputy was rewarded when he was made the Provincial Grand Master of the Freemasons in Monmouthshire.
  Rolls collected art including sketches by Henry Fuseli and illuminated manuscripts. Some of the sketches are now in the possession of Indiana University and others are in the British Museum.
  It was proposed that "a cattle show" should be created in Monmouth, and in 1857 the eighth Duke of Beaufort and Rolls each put money into a thirty-pound fund to start the Monmouth Cattle Show in October of the same year. Rolls was the greater financial contributor and he became President of the show until his death. This cattle show, still in existence, is now known as the Monmouthshire Show. Rolls also served as the President of the charity that ran The Dispensary which provided out-patient and hospital care for the poor people of Monmouth. He gave £1,000 to fund a hospital bed in perpetuity at that establishment.
  Rolls' daughters, Elizabeth Harcourt, Patty, Anne Katherine and Ellen, all married well; Georgina Emily married Thomas Chester-Master who was a Conservative MP whilst Rolls' third daughter Mary Octavia Rolls did not marry.
  After a long illness, Rolls died in 1870, and at All Saints' Church in Llanfrechfa in Monmouthshire a medieval preaching cross was rebuilt in his memory by his daughter Elizabeth and her husband Frank Johnstone Mitchell. He was succeeded by his son John Rolls, 1st Baron Llangattock.
caption: Woodblock print of The Hendre
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