Sir John Pickersgill Rodger, (12 February 1851 – 19 September 1910) was a British colonial administrator.

Early life

Rodger was born in 1851 at Marylebone in London, the second son of Sir Robert Rodger and his wife Sophia (née Pickersgill). His father was a landowner, magistrate and

Justice of the Peace A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower or ''puisne'' court, elected or appointed by means of a commission ( letters patent) to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the sa ...

who purchased

Hadlow Castle Hadlow Castle was an 18th-century country house in Hadlow, Kent, England, built in the fashionable Strawberry Hill 'Gothic' style. The house was gradually enlarged and extended during the 19th century and finally demolished in the 20th, apart ...

in Kent where the family lived, and was the

High Sheriff of Kent The high sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown (prior to 1974 the office previously known as sheriff)."Sheriffs appointed for a county or Greater London shall be known as high sheriffs, and any reference in any enactment or instrum ...

in 1865. He was educated at Eton College, where he was in the cricket XI, and went up to

Christ Church, Oxford Christ Church ( la, Ædes Christi, the temple or house, '' ædēs'', of Christ, and thus sometimes known as "The House") is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. Founded in 1546 by King Henry VIII, the college is uniqu ...

in 1870.Carlaw D (2020) ''Kent County Cricketers A to Z. Part One: 1806–1914'' (revised edition), p. 470.
Available online
at the Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians. Retrieved 2020-12-21.)Stapylton HC (1884) ''Eton school lists'', p.325. Eton: R Ingalton Drake.
Available online
Retrieved 2020-08-19.)
Obituaries in 1910, '' Wisden Cricketers' Almanack'', 1911. Retrieved 2020-08-19.

Career

Rodger was called to the English Bar at the Inner Temple in 1877 but practised little in Britain and joined the Colonial Service. In 1882 he was appointed as the Chief Magistrate and Commissioner of Lands at Selangor and was the British resident of Pahang, Selangor and

Perak Perak () is a state of Malaysia on the west coast of the Malay Peninsula. Perak has land borders with the Malaysian states of Kedah to the north, Penang to the northwest, Kelantan and Pahang to the east, and Selangor to the south. Thailand's ...

, all in

British Malaya The term "British Malaya" (; ms, Tanah Melayu British) loosely describes a set of states on the Malay Peninsula and the island of Singapore that were brought under British hegemony or control between the late 18th and the mid-20th century. U ...

, before being appointed as the Governor of the Gold Coast in 1904.Sir J. Pickersgill Rodger, '' The Times'', 20 September 1910, p.11.
Available online
at The Times Digital Archive . Retrieved 2020-08-19.) He was influential in the development of infrastructure whilst in post in West Africa, including the building of a harbour at

Accra Accra (; tw, Nkran; dag, Ankara; gaa, Ga or ''Gaga'') is the capital and largest city of Ghana, located on the southern coast at the Gulf of Guinea, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean. As of 2021 census, the Accra Metropolitan District, , ...

and of beginning the building of a railway to serve the cocoa industry around Kumasi. Rodger was appointed

CMG CMG may refer to: Companies * Capitol Music Group, a music label * China Media Group, the predominant state radio and television broadcaster in the PRC * China Media Group Co., Ltd., publicly listed Chinese holding company in the media sector * ...

in 1899 and knighted KCMG in 1904.

Cricket

Rodger was a

cricket Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of eleven players on a field at the centre of which is a pitch with a wicket at each end, each comprising two bails balanced on three stumps. The batting side scores runs by striki ...

er who played one first-class match for

Kent County Cricket Club Kent County Cricket Club is one of the eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Kent. A club representing the county was first founded in 1842 but Ke ...

in 1870 after leaving Eton, playing against an MCC side during Canterbury Cricket Week. He scored a total of seven runs in the match.John Rodger

CricInfo ESPN cricinfo (formerly known as Cricinfo or CricInfo) is a sports news website exclusively for the game of cricket. The site features news, articles, live coverage of cricket matches (including liveblogs and scorecards), and ''StatsGuru'', a d ...

. Retrieved 2019-03-30. Although he played some cricket at Oxford he did not make the University XI. He played club cricket for a variety of amateur sides, including MCC, Band of Brothers and the Gentlemen of Kent. His brother, William Rodger, also played for Kent.John Rodger
CricketArchive . Retrieved 2019-03-30.

Family

Rodger married Maria Tyser in 1872; the couple had one daughter. He died in September 1910 in London shortly after retiring from the Colonial Service due to ill health. He was aged 59.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodger, John Pickersgill 1851 births 1910 deaths History of Perak Administrators in British Malaya Governors of the Gold Coast (British colony) English cricketers Kent cricketers People educated at Eton College Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford Knights Commander of the Order of St Michael and St George