Author: Roper, Samuel
Biography:
ROPER, Samuel (1789-1858: ancestry.co.uk)
He was baptised on 15 Jan. 1789 at Potterspury, Northamptonshire, the eldest son of John Roper (1756-1837), steward and later land agent to the Duke of Grafton for nearly fifty years, and Ann Freeman (1767-1841), who had married on 13 Dec. 1787. Nothing is known of his education but he probably joined the Ordnance department of the War Office in the later stages of the Napoleonic War. He was an assistant clerk in Ordnance Hall, Tower Hill, for many years, and was active in the Ordnance Tower Bible Society in the 1820s. He married Elizabeth Dyster (1785-1869) on 16 Oct. 1817 at St. John’s, Hackney. They went on to have three children. They lived for many years at 9 Clapton Square, Hackney, and he was active as a vice president in the Hackney Literary and Scientific Institution and as honorary secretary of Hackney Grammar School. In the 1840s he wrote a statistical account of his parish and a comparative account of its health. In 1854 he was promoted to Chief Clerk in the Store Account Office. He died on 14 Sept. 1858 at Pembury Road, Clapton, and was buried at St. Thomas’s. He left an estate valued at £9,000. His wife, Ann, died in 1869, leaving an estate of £14,000. His only daughter, Elizabeth, had predeceased him in 1843. His son Freeman Clarke Samuel Roper (1819-96) became a well-known botanist. Sketches of Birds (1832), which he wrote for his children, with a preface from Hackney, consists of verse and prose extracts from various authorities. He also wrote on work-related economic topics, such as A Few Plain Reasons in Favour of Cash Payments (1819). His Letters on the Nature and Objects of Political Economy (1825) reprinted many of his letters written from Hackney to the Farmers’ Journal. (ancestry.co.uk 3 Mar. 2024; findmypast.co.uk 3 Mar. 2024; MH 26 Oct. 1825, 20 Dec. 1843; Sun 16 Nov. 1837; Globe 17 Sept. 1858; Morning Post22 Apr. 1869; GRO death cert.) AA