Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Rotherham, John
ROTHERHAM, Sir JOHN (1630–1696?), lawyer, son of Thomas Atwood Rotherham, vicar of Pirton, Hertfordshire, and of Boreham, Essex, was baptised at Luton, Bedfordshire, on 21 Oct. 1630. He belonged to the ancient house of Rotherham of Farleigh, near Luton, and was admitted fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, as of kin to its second founder, Archbishop Rotherham, in 1648. He matriculated on 9 Feb. 1648–9, graduated B.A. on 5 June 1649, and proceeded M.A. on 6 May 1652. In 1653 he was incorporated at Cambridge.
On 2 Aug. 1647 Rotherham was admitted a member of Gray's Inn, where he was called to the bar on 18 May 1655, was elected ancient in November 1671, and treasurer in 1685–6. Rotherham was the draughtsman of the plea put in by Algernon Sidney [q. v.] on his trial for high treason, 7 Nov. 1683; and was one of the counsel retained by Henry Ashurst [q. v.] for the defence of Richard Baxter [q. v.] on 30 May 1685. The indictment was for seditious libel, grounded on the animadversions on episcopacy contained in the ‘Paraphrase of the New Testament.’ Rotherham attempted to argue that Baxter's attack was directed exclusively against the prelates of the church of Rome, but the absurd contention was laughed out of court by Jeffreys. In January 1687–8 he was made high steward of Maldon, under the new charter granted by James II; he was made serjeant-at-law on 18 June, and baron of the exchequer on 7 July of the same year. He was knighted six days later, and on 23 Oct. following he took the oath and test.
He carried his hatred of episcopacy on to the bench, and on the acquittal of the seven bishops sneered at them as writers of bad English, and fit to be ‘corrected by Dr. Busby for false grammar.’ On the revolution he resumed his practice at the bar. Rotherham was a friend of Robert Boyle [q. v.], who made him one of the trustees of his lecture (cf. Evelyn, Diary, May 1696). He died about 1696. He was lord from 1684 of the rectory manor of Waltham Abbey, to which succeeded his son, John Rotherham, recorder of Maldon.
[Lysons's Magna Britannia, i. 113; Morant's Essex, ii. 88; Foster's Alumni Oxon. and Gray's Inn Adm. Reg.; Wood's Fasti Oxon. (Bliss), ii. 120, 170; Clutterbuck's Hertfordshire, iii. 126; Cobbett's State Trials, ix. 822, xi. 498; Sir John Bramston's Autobiogr. (Camden Soc.), pp. 304, 311; Luttrell's Brief Relation of State Affairs, i. 444, 446, 450, 470; Haydn's Book of Dignities, ed. Ockerby; Evelyn's Diary, 13 Feb. 1692, 2 May 1696; Foss's Lives of the Judges.]