Henry Roper (judge)
{{Short description|British judge}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2022}}
{{Use Indian English|date=December 2022}}
Henry Roper (1800–1863) was a British barrister and judge who served as Chief Justice of Bombay Supreme Court.{{cite book |title=Debrett's Illustrated Peerage and Baronetage, Titles of Courtesy and the Knightage |date=1899 |publisher=Kelly's Directories |page=759 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=azwb4QOgvA4C&pg=PA759 |language=en}}{{Cite book |last=Haydn |first=Joseph |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=buoKAAAAYAAJ&dq=Henry+Roper+chief+justice+bombay&pg=PA272 |title=The book of dignities; containing rolls of the official personages of the British Empire |date=1851 |publisher=Longman }}{{Cite web |title=Chief Justice ship Of Bombay—Appointment Of Mr D Pollock |url=https://hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/1846-08-18/debates/36618025-27f4-4dd9-ba4b-628a9a7b424b/ChiefJusticeshipOfBombay%E2%80%94AppointmentOfMrDPollock |website=Parliament of the United Kingdom}}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73szAQAAMAAJ&dq=Henry+Roper+chief+justice+bombay&pg=PA52 |title=The Law Review, and Quarterly Journal of British and Foreign Jurisprudence |date=1853 |publisher=V. & R. Richards, & G.S. Norton |language=en}}{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TbMzAQAAMAAJ&dq=Henry+Roper+chief+justice+bombay&pg=PA1213 |title=The Jurist |date=1842 |publisher=S. Sweet |language=en}}
Life
He was the son of William Roper, and a great-grandson of the marriage between Henry Roper, 8th Baron Teynham and his third wife Anne Barrett-Lennard, 16th Baroness Dacre.{{cite book |last1=Walford |first1=Edward |title=The County Families of the United Kingdom |date=1864 |publisher=Hardwicke |page=861 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=n9pv_1xLploC&pg=PA861 |language=en}} His mother was Elizabeth Fish, daughter of Robert Fish of Castle Fish (i.e. Tober(r)ogan), co. Kildare, and sister of the Wexford Borough Member of Parliament John Fish.{{cite book |title=The royal lineage of our noble and gentle families |date=1883 |publisher=Hazell, Watson, and Viney |page=87 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=je4KAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA87 |language=en}}
In London, Roper was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1826. He frequented the home in Cadogan Place of Anna Wilford (nee Forbes, previous married name Crause, died 1842), widow of General Richard (died 1822). There he met the journalist Joachim Hayward Stocqueler.{{cite book |last1=Stocqueler |first1=Joachim Hayward |title=The memoirs of a journalist. Enlarged, revised |date=1873 |pages=64–65 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-pUIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA64 |language=en}}{{cite web |title=View scale Nathaniel Hone, R.A. (1718-1784) Double portrait of General Richard Wilford and Sir Levett Hanson |url=https://www.christies.com/en/lot/lot-4020487 |website=christies.com}}
Roper moved to India in 1827, according to Stocqueler, or 1828, to practise in the Bombay Supreme Court, as a barrister.{{cite book |title=Calcutta Review |date=1910 |publisher=University of Calcutta |page=81|volume=130 |language=en}} Stocqueler had travelled there in 1827. He related that Roper's first case was a hot potato, taking the side of an attorney in dispute with a barrister. When the Bombay Bar complained to Edward West, West suspended the barristers involved. West died in 1828, but Roper had opened his Indian career by then.{{Cite ODNB|id=29079 |title=West, Sir Edward (bap. 1782, d. 1828), judge and political economist |last=Berg|first=Maxine L.}} Stocqueler started a newspaper, the Iris, and an attack he made on the editor of the Bombay Gazette cost him a challenge to a duel from its editor. Roper, who contributed to the Iris, acted as his second.{{cite book |last1=Stocqueler |first1=Joachim Hayward |title=The memoirs of a journalist. Enlarged, revised |date=1873 |page=63|url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=-pUIAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA63 |language=en}}{{cite web |last1=Carpenter |first1=Audrey T. |title=From Soldier to Newspaperman: The Varied Experiences of Joachim Hayward Stocqueler in Bombay and Calcutta from 1819 to 1843|page=12 note 6 |url=https://www.fibis.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/J33.pdf |website=fibis.org |publisher=Families in British India Society}}
Having worked in Bombay as Clerk of the Crown, Roper was made a Supreme Court judge in 1838, when he was knighted.{{cite news|title=Sir Henry Roper |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001578/18630404/112/0029 |work=Illustrated London News |date=4 April 1863|page=29}} He was made Chief Justice in 1841.{{cite book |title=The Bombay Calendar and Almanac |date=1853 |publisher=Times Press |page=205 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gLZHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA205 |language=en}} At the beginning of his tenure, he summoned the proprietors of the Bombay Courier and Bombay Times to court, to answer contempt of court charges.{{cite book |last1=Sanyal |first1=Ram Copal |title=Reminiscences and Anecdotes of Great Men of India |date=1894 |publisher=Herald Printing Works |location=Calcutta |pages=109-110 |url=https://archive.org/details/reminiscencesan00sanygoog/page/n123/mode/1up? |language=English}} In 1844 both Roper and Thomas Erskine Perry, then the puisne judge who served with him, sent comments to the India Law Commission under Edward Law, 2nd Baron Ellenborough, for a report on law reform. Their ideas differed significantly, the Commissioners finding merit in Roper's ideas on "logical principles of pleading", and in Erskine's on "oral over written pleading".{{cite book |title=Copies of the special reports of the Indian law commissioners |date=1845 |page=45 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=jklDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA45 |language=en}}
Roper retired in 1846, in "impaired health", returning to the United Kingdom.{{cite book |title=Allen's Indian mail and register of intelligence for British and foreign India: 1846 |date=1846 |page=650 |url=https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=CmlDAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA650 |language=en}} He died in 1863 at Stoke House, near Chichester.{{cite news |title=Sir Henry Roper |url=https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/viewer/bl/0001578/18630404/112/0029 |work=Illustrated London News |date=4 April 1863|page=29}}
Family
File:Charlotte Lydia Lady Roper Silvy.jpg
Roper married in 1847 Charlotte Lydia Pleydell-Bouverie, daughter of the Rev. Frederick Pleydell-Bouverie, canon of Salisbury Cathedral, and granddaughter of Jacob Pleydell-Bouverie, 2nd Earl of Radnor. The couple had two sons and three daughters; the sons were Henry Charles Roper, a barrister, and Alexander William Roper of the Royal Engineers.{{cite book |last1=Fox-Davies |first1=Arthur Charles |title=Armorial Families: A Directory of Gentlemen of Coat-armour |date=1910 |publisher=T.C. & E.C. Jack |page=1389 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M2VHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1389 |language=en}} Of the daughters, Elizabeth Catherine (1857–1942) married the Rev. Carew Hervey Mildmay (1863–1937) in 1912.{{cite book |title=Dod's Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage, of Great Britain and Ireland |date=1923 |publisher=S. Low, Marston & Company |page=606 |language=en}}{{cite book |last1=Willson |first1=F. M. G. |title=A Strong Supporting Cast: The Shaw Lefevres 1789-1936 |page=342 |date=19 November 2015 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-4742-4137-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1X5qCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA342 |language=en}}{{acad|id=MLDY881CH|name=Mildmay, Carew Hervey St John}}