TOPIC:

Frederick Arundel Rogers

Lay Chaplain, Army Chaplain’s Department – Anglo Boer War

- Queens South Africa Medal (Cape Colony) to Mr. F.A. Rogers. Lay Chaplain

Fred Rogers was born in Sherborne, Dorset on 3 January 1876 the son of Reverend William Moyle Rogers, a Church of England Curate and renowned botanical collector and his wife Alicia, born Chadwick. His father came to the Cape Colony in 1860, was ordained in Cape Town and appointed vice-principal of Bishop's College. He was stationed at Riversdale from January to June 1860 and then at George until September 1862. He collected plants at both these places, and at Caledon in October 1862, but then returned to England with health problems, taking up the living at Chernole, Dorset which is where, on 30 January 1876, young Frederick was baptised.

At the time of the 1881 England census Fred and his parents were living in Trusham, Devon. Rev. Rogers was the local Curate and in the New Rectory, aside from Fred (5), was sister Mary Alicia (10). Either the living was a lucrative one or Rev. Rogers was a man of independent means – this is amplified by the number of servants to hand – Ida Cranbrook was the children’s Governess whilst Charlotte Willey doubled as Nurse and Housemaid. Elizabeth Triggs was the Cook and Elizabeth Pridham was the Housemaid.

By the time the 1891 England census rolled round, the Rogers family’s domestic arrangements were somewhat altered – Reverend Rogers had retired to Bournemouth in 1885 and a 15 year old Frederick was away as a Boarder at a private school, Glan-y-morfa, in Flintshire, owned and run by a Richard M.H. Jones. After finishing his schooling there, he went up to Keble College, University of Oxford, where he graduated as Bachelor of Arts (BA) in 1897.

The last year of the 19th century was a turbulent one. Victoria’s reign over her Empire was almost at an end and, with it, British global dominance. Two disgruntled Dutch-speaking Boer Republics in faraway South Africa were flexing their collective muscles and threatening to invade the British Colonies of the Cape and Natal and Britain was wholly unprepared for this. Matters came to a head with war being declared between the belligerents on 11 October 1899.

Quite apart from the obvious need for regular soldiers with which to wage war, the Imperial forces also required men who would be able to provide spiritual succour and guidance to those in the field. The life of an Army Chaplain or his civilian counterpart, the Lay Chaplain, involved more than just the holding of regular Sunday Church services but also the more onerous and soul destroying work of visiting the sick, the wounded and the dying under all conditions and, frequently, not just at field hospitals and ambulances but in the frontline itself.


An example of a Chaplain at work in the field

Rogers, no doubt impressed by his father’s tales of South Africa, and imbued with a sense that he could make a difference, came out to the country in 1899, the year when the Anglo-Boer War broke out, as acting lay chaplain to the British forces. During that year, as he followed the ponderous British advance to the relief of Kimberley, he collected plants along the Midland railway line in the Cape Colony, but the results were poor owing to drought. It could almost be said that the war allowed him to pursue his other great passion in life, botany, following in his father’s footsteps, and becoming a noted botanist in his own right.

Not much is known about the time he spent in the war but he wasn’t destined to be involved for any great length of time. Upon returning to England he was appointed curate of St John the Divine at Kennington, Kent, in 1901 and the next year was ordained as a priest. The 1901 England census has him as a student at Church Cottage in Oxford as a Theological Student. He obtained his Master of Arts (MA) in 1904 and, not long after, headed back to the Dark Continent where he joined the South African Church Railway Mission as assistant chaplain in the Diocese of Pretoria in 1905 and was subsequently attached to the Diocese of Bloemfontein (1906) and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia, 1908).

During 1905-1907 he presented hundreds of plants from various localities in the Transvaal Colony, the Orange River Colony (now the Free State) and Natal to the Transvaal Museum, Pretoria. In 1908 he travelled up to the Zambezi River and on his return presented a collection of more than 1000 plant species to the Albany Museum, Grahamstown. These had been collected in the Cape Colony, the Transvaal, and along the railway lines of Zimbabwe, Natal and Mozambique. Many had been identified by the British Museum, others by Harry Bolus in Cape Town, and many species were new. More plants from Zimbabwe or Zambia were sent to Kew Gardens in England, and to the South African Museum, Cape Town.


A 1907 photo of SA Railways Church Mission clergy - Rogers is reputed to be among them.

After contracting malaria Rogers returned to England in 1909 for a stay of 18 months. During this period his cottage in Bulawayo, Rhodesia burned down and a manuscript he was preparing on the history of the mission he had joined was destroyed. From 1911 to 1914 he was head of the South African Church Railway Mission and twice visited Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi), capital of Katanga Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The SACRM referred to, grew out of the work of an itinerant priest, the Rev. P. B. Simeon, in the eastern Cape province in the late nineteenth century. In 1899 a London Committee was formed to raise funds and recruit missionaries. It continued as the headquarters of the SACRM while the organisation spread its influence northwards throughout southern Africa. At first, only male priests were engaged, but after 1905 'women workers' (many of whom were nursing sisters) were recruited as lay assistants. The staffing reflected the pastoral and evangelical nature of SACRM activities.

Before the establishment of a social welfare division within railway organisations the SACRM focused on the moral as well as the spiritual well-being of railway workers who were beyond the reach of railway institutes and established parishes in big towns. On lengthy tours of duty, missioners visited railwaymen and their families by travelling as ordinary train passengers, or in their own special mission coach. At small stations and sidings, missioners stopped briefly while passengers or cargo were taken aboard or offloaded, or while the men were paid, or the engine watered. At bigger centres the mission coach was uncoupled and was used as a home, social centre, library, chapel and confessional, in between missionary visits to local railway communities on foot, by bicycle or on a gangers' trolley.


A Mission coach such as that which plied the railway line.

During 1911-1913 Rogers presented more plants from Zimbabwe, Transvaal and the Cape Colony to both the Albany Museum and the South African Museum. Another collection of over 2000 plants was presented to the Rhodesia Museum, Bulawayo, in 1912 and formed the nucleus of the Rogers Herbarium. He first collected on the Witwatersrand in 1915, and in 1918 collected many plants there with Professor Charles E. Moss.

Rogers not only collected extensively all over southern Africa, but also in many other countries, including several European countries, Cyprus, Iraq, India, Kenya, etc. He also received plants from other collectors, including George Thorncroft of Barberton. His more than 24 000 specimens are housed in various local and overseas herbaria, namely those of the British Natural History Museum; Kew Gardens; the Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques, Geneva; the National History Museum of Zimbabwe, Bulawayo; the Albany Museum, Grahamstown; the Moss Herbarium, University of the Witwatersrand; the National Herbarium, Pretoria; and the Compton Herbarium, Cape Town.


The frontispiece of Light for the Line - 1912

In the January 1912 issue of the SACRM magazine – Light for the Line – he features as the Head of the Mission. He is also mentioned by the Rev. H.B. Ellison, a former Head, in a letter wherein he wrote: - My dear Friends, This is just a word before I sail for England to wish you one and all “Godspeed” not only for the New Year, but for the years that may lie in front. So long as we can count on you as our “friends” indeed, I know that neither Mr. Rogers, nor any of us who care for the Railway Mission need have much anxiety for the future.”

In his Letter from the Head which followed on from the above, Rogers wrote: -

“Mr. Ellison told you in his October letter that he had sent in his resignation to the Archbishop and by the time this reaches you he will probably be in England. The Archbishop and Bishops of the Province have asked me to take over the work and for the last month I have been acting as Head of the Mission. This month has taught me two things : — First, how much we all owe to Mr. Ellison and his brother. Well, if you will act as Head for a month, you will soon find out. When you find out what it means to keep in touch with 28 workers, scattered over nearly 8,000 miles of line, each of them, of necessity, constantly out of reach of letters for days at a time; to find new workers to supply their places as they give up the work; to find £3,000 or £4,000 a year to pay our way; and to carry on the endless correspondence involved in the work: the question is not “How does one man put in his time at it?” but “Is it possible for one man to do it effectively?'' Mr. Ellison has managed to do it for three years, but he has paid heavily for it in health and strength, and for our own sakes we may be glad that he is going to have a change of work for a bit.

And the second thing I have learnt this month is one which follows from the first, and that is how much the new Head and the Mission generally will want your help if things are not to slip back. Mr. Ellison kindly saved me from the unpleasant task of starting my work by a financial letter; but may I just say that the need of local help is even more urgent than it was three months ago: When we ask people in England to help us their first question is “What do the people to whom you minister do to show their appreciation of the work?” If your reply has to be that the contribution from about 8000 miles of line, including several camps, amounts to £50 in return for the work of one of our clergy, they naturally do not feel inclined to do much.

It is difficult to please everybody and no one with any sense tries to, but a good many causes of complaint might be removed if the complaints were made in the right quarter, namely, to the person who gives the cause of complaint. The writer of the book of Ecclesiasticus gives some very wise advice: “Admonish a friend, it may be he hath not done it ; and if he have done it, that he do it no more. Admonish thy friend, it may be he hath not said it ; and if he have, that he speak it not again. Admonish a friend: for many times it is a slander, and believe not every tale. There is one that slippeth in his speech, but not from his heart; and who is he that hath not offended with his tongue?” So if you want to criticize us please do it to our face and we may improve; otherwise we may never know our failing’s.

There is a shop at my home in Bournemouth which prints at the top of every bill: “We want to please you! If we do, please tell your friends; if we don’t, please tell us.” The Railway Mission is not a shop and our first object is not to please you, but as the Prayer Book says, “ to please Almighty God and to profit you” ; but at any rate we wish you to carry out the last part of the notice, and if we don’t please you, tell us! With every best wish for a happy New year, Believe me, your very sincere friend, Fred. A . Rogers.”

On 30 June 1914, almost the eve of the Great War, he sailed for Southampton and England aboard the Edinburgh Castle – probably for the combined purpose of a visit to family and to report to his SACRM superiors. His returned on the “Saxon” from London, sailing to Cape Town on 29 August 1914, after the start of the phoney war.

The October 1923 issue of the SACRM journal – Light for the Line – carried a mention of him - Canon Thornely Jones in his “Letter” from The Rectory, Knysna, C.G.H., on September 10th, 1923 stating that: -

“It was a great pleasure to be able to welcome our old Head, Mr. Rogers, just before I left Grahamstown (he is for the time being acting Chaplain to the Training College there), and on the last Sunday he, Mr. Rolfe and I were together at the Chapel Altar for the early Eucharist, so we had the “past, the present and the future.”

Rogers returned to England sailing abord the “Llanstephan Castle” from Port Elizabeth on 24 March 1925. He never returned to South Africa. The 1939 Register confirming that he was now resident at “Chetnole Hills” in East Grinstead where he was, at the age of 63, a retired Clerk in Holy Orders. Still single (he never married) he lived with his spinster sister, Mary Anne. He passed away on 27 June 1944 at 16 Fitzroy Square, London and bequeathed the sum of £230 to his aged sister.

A famous botanist and a zealous missionary both.

Acknowledgements:

- Railway ganging in southern Africa, c. 1900-37 G. H. PIRIE University of the Witwatersrand
- Light for the Line 1912 and 1923
- S2A3 Biographical Database of Southern African Science
- Ancestry for medal rolls, census data, probate.

Scientific name: Sterculia rogersii

Common names: Star Chestnut, Ulumbu Tree, Small-Leaved Star Chestnut

This member of the Malvaceae family was given its scientific name by Nicholas Edward Brown in 1921. It is found in Botswana, Eswatini, Mozambique, NE South Africa and Zimbabwe, growing in a well drained soil with some water and some/lots of sun. The swollen stem can grow from 40 to 80 centimetres in diameter, the entire tree to seven metres in height. The flowers are greenish yellow with red or pink stripes.

The genera name after the Latin god; Sterculius. The species name after Archdeacon F.A. Rogers, an English missionary and plant collector.

No greater honour can a botanist receive than having a plant named after him by one of his fellow botanists.