Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rose, Hugh James
ROSE, HUGH JAMES (1795–1838), theologian, elder son of William Rose (1763–1844), successively curate of Little Horsted and Uckfield, Sussex, and from 1824 until his death vicar of Glynde in the same county, was born at the parsonage, Little Horsted, on 9 June 1795. He was of ancient Scottish lineage, his grandfather, who fought on the Jacobite side at Culloden, being a cadet of the Roses of Kilravock. He was educated at Uckfield school, of which his father was master, and at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he went into residence in Michaelmas term 1813. In 1814 he gained the first Bell scholarship in the university, and next year was elected scholar of his college. He graduated B.A. in 1817, being first chancellor's medallist and fourteenth wrangler. In the same year he published ‘Remarks on the first Chapter of the Bishop of Llandaff's “Horæ Pelasgicæ” [by Bishop Marsh],’ which attracted some notice; in the following year his dissertation on the theme ‘Inter Græcos et Romanos Historiæ comparatione facta cujusnam stylus imitatione maxime dignus esse videtur’ gained the middle bachelors' members' prize. Missing his fellowship, Rose, who was ordained deacon on 20 Dec. 1818, took a cure of souls at Buxted, Sussex, on 16 March 1819. He received priest's orders on 19 Dec. 1819, and in 1821 was presented by Archbishop Manners-Sutton to the vicarage of Horsham, Sussex, where for two years he laboured with great devotion and success. At the same time he won some repute as a controversialist by his ‘Critical Examination of that part of Mr. Bentham's “Church of Englandism” which relates to the Church Catechism,’ 1820, and by his article on Hone's ‘Apocryphal New Testament’ in the ‘Quarterly Review,’ July 1821. For a year from May 1824 he was in Germany for the benefit of his health. In the course of his travels he made some acquaintance with the German rationalistic schools of theology, and on his return he delivered, as select preacher at Cambridge, four discourses, intended to forewarn and forearm the church of England against the rationalistic criticism of the continent. They were published in the course of the year under the title ‘The State of the Protestant Religion in Germany,’ Cambridge, 8vo, and elicited adverse criticism both in England and Germany [see Pusey, Edward Bouverie]. To his German critics Rose replied in an ‘Appendix to the State of the Protestant Religion in Germany,’ 1828, 8vo; and to Pusey in ‘A Letter to the Lord Bishop of London,’ 1829, 8vo, and also in an enlarged edition of his book published the same year. In 1828 appeared his ‘Commission and consequent Duties of the Clergy’ (four sermons in exposition of an exalted view of the Christian ministry, delivered by him as select preacher at Cambridge in 1826), London, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1831. Rose also held the office of select preacher at Cambridge in 1828, 1829, 1830, 1833, and 1834, uniting with it from 1829 to 1833 that of Christian advocate (for his contributions to apologetics see infra). On 23 Feb. 1827 he was collated to the prebend of Middleton in the church of Chichester, which he resigned in 1833. In 1830 he vacated the Horsham living on being instituted on 26 Jan. to the rectory of Hadleigh, Suffolk, which he resigned in 1833. In 1834 he was instituted to the rectory of Fairsted, Essex, and in 1835 to the perpetual curacy of St. Thomas's, Southwark. The former living he resigned on 4 Jan. 1837, the latter he held until his death.
Rose was a firm but cautious high-churchman, and desired the restoration of the ancient Anglican doctrines and practices. To propagate his views he founded in 1832 the ‘British Magazine and Monthly Register of Religious and Ecclesiastical Information,’ of which he was the first editor, and he helped Archdeacon Lyall [see Lyall, William Rowe] to edit the ‘Theological Library.’ During a visit to Oxford in quest of contributors for his magazine, he established relations with John Henry Newman [q. v.], William Palmer (1803–1885) [q. v.] of Worcester College, Richard Hurrell Froude [q. v.], John Keble [q. v.], and Arthur Philip Perceval [q. v.]; and towards the end of July 1833 Palmer, Perceval, and Froude visited him at Hadleigh, and discussed the ecclesiastico-political situation. Though no definite plan was then concerted, the Association of Friends of the Church was soon afterwards formed by Froude and Palmer; and hence the ‘Hadleigh conference’ is an important landmark in the early history of the Tractarian movement. In the movement itself Rose took little part, though in its earlier phases it commanded his sympathy. He contributed leaders to the ‘British Magazine,’ and endeavoured by correspondence at first to guide and afterwards to moderate its course.
In the autumn of 1833 he was appointed to the chair of divinity at the university of Durham, which ill-health compelled him to resign in the following year, after he had delivered no more than three lectures, including his inaugural address. In the spring of 1834 Archbishop Howley made him his domestic chaplain. In 1836 he succeeded Edward Smedley as editor of the ‘Encyclopædia Metropolitana;’ and about the same time he projected the ‘New General Biographical Dictionary,’ the first volume of which appeared after his death under the editorship of his brother, Henry John Rose [q. v.], in 1839. Although the words ‘projected and partly arranged by the late Rev. Hugh James Rose’ appear on each of the twelve volumes of the undertaking, Rose was not actively concerned in its production. It proved a perfunctory performance (cf. Bolton Corney's caustic tract On the New Biographical Dictionary, 1839). On 21 Oct. 1836 Rose succeeded Dr. William Otter as principal of King's College, London. He had hardly entered on his new duties when he was prostrated by an attack of influenza, from the effects of which he never rallied. He left England in October 1838 to winter in Italy, reached Florence, and there died on 22 Dec. His remains were interred in the protestant cemetery on the road to Fiesole. A mural tablet, with a relief of his profile, is in King's College chapel. No good portrait of Rose exists (but see a print from a crayon sketch in Burgon's Lives of Twelve Good Men, ed. 1891). His preaching is described by admiring contemporaries as peculiarly impressive.
Rose married, on 24 June 1819, Anna Cuyler, daughter of Captain Peter Mair of Hill House, Richmond, Yorkshire, by whom he had no issue.
Rose's reputation for Greek scholarship rests upon: 1. ‘Inscriptiones Græcæ Vetustissimæ. Collegit et Observationes tum aliorum tum suas adjecit Hugo Jacobus Rose, M.A.,’ Cambridge, 1825, 8vo; a work to which Boeckh (‘Corpus Inscript. Græc.,’ Berlin, 1828, vol. i. pp. xi, xx, xxvi) acknowledges obligation. 2. His edition of Parkhurst's ‘Greek and English Lexicon to the New Testament,’ London, 1829, 8vo. 3. His edition of Bishop Middleton's ‘Doctrine of the Greek Article applied to the Criticism and Illustration of the New Testament,’ London, 1833, 8vo.
His contributions to Christian apologetics are: 1. ‘Christianity always Progressive,’ London, 1829, 8vo. 2. ‘Brief Remarks on the Disposition towards Christianity generated by prevailing Opinions and Pursuits,’ London, 1830, 8vo. 3. ‘Eight Sermons preached before the University of Cambridge at Great St. Mary's in the Years 1830 and 1831. To which is added a Reprint of a Sermon preached before the University on Commencement Sunday, 1826,’ Cambridge, 1831, 8vo. 4. ‘Notices of the Mosaic Law: with some Account of the Opinions of recent French Writers concerning it,’ London, 1831, 8vo. 5. ‘The Gospel an Abiding System. With some Remarks on the New Christianity of the St. Simonians,’ London, 1832, 8vo. He also printed his two Durham divinity lectures, viz.: (1) ‘An Apology for the Study of Divinity;’ (2) ‘The Study of Church History recommended,’ London, 1834.
[Burgon's Lives of Twelve Good Men; Gent. Mag. 1839 i. 319, 1844 ii. 216; Rose's New Biogr. Dict.; Sussex Archæolog. Collect. xii. 18, xx. 75, 86; Mozley's Reminiscences, chiefly of Oriel College, &c., chap. xlviii.; Newman's Apologia, chap. ii.; Palmer's Narrative of Events connected with the publication of Tracts for the Times; Church's Oxford Movement; Liddon's Life of Pusey, passim; Churton's Life of Joshua Watson, i. 259; Pryme's Autobiographic Recollections, p. 172; Perceval's Collection of Papers connected with the Theological Movement of 1833; Maurice's Life of F. D. Maurice; Abbey and Overton's English Church in the Nineteenth Century.]