William Roe, DL (1748 – 6 March 1826) was an English civil servant. He was a Commissioner for Auditing Public Accounts from 1783 to 1788, and then a Commissioner for Customs until 1819; he was chairman of the Board of Customs for England and Wales from 1805 to 1819.

Early life and family

Born in 1748, Roe was the only surviving child of Robert Roe (died 1753) of Brinwith, Glamorganshire, and his wife, Hester (died 1760), daughter of William Wraxall of

Bristol Bristol () is a city, ceremonial county and unitary authority in England. Situated on the River Avon, it is bordered by the ceremonial counties of Gloucestershire to the north and Somerset to the south. Bristol is the most populous city in ...

.George William Collen,
Debrett's Baronetage of England Revised, Corrected and Continued
' (London: William Pickering, 1840), p. 469. In 1775, he married Susan Margaret (died 1831), daughter of

Sir William Thomas, 2nd Baronet ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

(died 1777), of Yapton Place; they had five children: William Thomas Roe (1776–1834); Louisa Georgiana Roe (1778–1843); George Henry Popham Roe and Edward Wrexhall Roe, who both died in infancy; and Frederick Adair Roe (1789–1866).Sir Bernard Burke
''Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage''
40th ed. (London: Harrison, 1878), p. 1180.

Edmund Lodge Edmund Lodge, KH (1756–1839), herald, was a long-serving English officer of arms, a writer on heraldic subjects, and a compiler of short biographies. Life and career Lodge was born in Poland Street, London on 13 June 1756, the son of Edmund Lo ...

,
The Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire as at Present Existing
', 29th ed. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1860), p. 764. Roe was close to his eldest son William and thought highly of him.Anthony Fletcher, ''Growing Up in England: The Experience of Childhood 1600–1914'' (New Haven, Conn.:

Yale University Press Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous. , Yale Universi ...

, 2010).

Career and later life

"A provincial from Bristol" working as a customs official, Roe attracted the attention of Thomas Anguish after writing a series of critical, moralistic articles concerning

Lord Shelburne William Petty Fitzmaurice, 1st Marquess of Lansdowne, (2 May 17377 May 1805; known as the Earl of Shelburne between 1761 and 1784, by which title he is generally known to history), was an Irish-born British Whig statesman who was the first ...

's 1783 peace treaty with America.John Torrance
"Social Class and Bureaucratic Innovation: The Commissioners for Examining the Public Accounts 1780–1787"
'' Past and Present'', vol. 78 (1978), p. 76. That year,John Burke
''A General and Heraldic Dictionary of the Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire by John Burke''
(London: Henry Colburn, 1838), p. 811. Anguish co-opted Roe as a Commissioner for Auditing Public Accounts; the commission, which was tasked with investigating government finances and making recommendations, produced influential reports on reforming public expenditure and has been considered a catalyst for the "administrative revolution" in British government which followed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Roe himself authored one of the reports (the fifteenth in the series) and was the most active member, after Anguish. In 1788, Roe was appointed a Commissioner of Customs, replacing

John Pownall John Pownall (1724–1795) was a British office holder and politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1775 to 1776. Early life Pownall was baptised at Lincoln, England, Lincoln in 1724. He was the second surviving son of William Pownall and ...

;''Her Majesty's Letters Patent Appointing Nine Commissioners for Managing, etc., the Revenue of Customs'' (London: J. Hartnell and Co., 1849), pp. 21–22. seen as an "active administrator", the appointment was made by

William Pitt the Younger William Pitt the Younger (28 May 175923 January 1806) was a British statesman, the youngest and last prime minister of Great Britain (before the Acts of Union 1800) and then first prime minister of the United Kingdom (of Great Britain and Ire ...

's government as part of a series of moves to reform the "tangled" finances and inefficiencies of the Board of Customs, a department which (with the Board of Revenue) was responsible for two thirds of the national income. He became chairman of the board in 1805, succeeding Thomas Boone, and served in that office until 1819, chairing the board jointly with

Richard Frewin Richard Frewin, M.D. (1681?-1761), was an English physician and professor of history. Early life and education Frewin, the son of Ralph Frewin of London, was admitted as a King's Scholar at Westminster in 1693, and elected thence to a Westminster s ...

until 1813 and then

Francis Fownes Luttrell Francis Fownes Luttrell (9 February 1756 – 24 April 1823) was a British politician who was a member of parliament for Minehead from 1780 to 1783. He was also a commissioner for Taxes and later for Customs, before serving as chair of the board o ...

. He and Luttrell were succeeded as chairmen by Richard Betenson Dean. When he resigned his commission, Roe negotiated to have his son William appointed in his place;W. R. Ward
"Some Eighteenth Century Civil Servants: The English Revenue Commissioners, 1754–98"
'' The English Historical Review'', vol. 70, no. 274 (1955), p. 48.Ehrman, p. 288. for the historian John Ehrman, this highlights the blurred distinctions between administrative appointees and political or social ones, while W. R. Ward argues that such a bargain show how the office was viewed as a "negotiable asset". Roe bought the manors of

Withdean Withdean is a former village, now part of Brighton and Hove, East Sussex. Overview The area was originally named in the 12th century, when it was called Wictedene. The area was historically farm land but has been developed, mainly in the 1920s ...

and Withdean Caycliffe near

Brighton Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London. Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...

in 1794, and was active in improving and managing the estate;"Withdean Manors Succession"
(Brighton History). Retrieved 23 August 2021. he planted a large number of trees on some of the land, establishing Withdean Park. He was also a deputy lieutenant of Sussex."Died"
''Sussex Advertiser'', 13 March 1826, p. 3. Roe died on 6 March 1826 at Brighton, aged 78.

Legacy

Roe's notebooks and diaries, recorded from 1775 to 1809, were edited by

Charles Thomas-Stanford Sir Charles Thomas-Stanford, 1st Baronet (3 April 1858 – 7 March 1932), born Charles Thomas, was a British Conservative Party politician from Brighton. He sat in the House of Commons from 1914 to 1922. Early life and family The son of Davi ...

and published as ''The Private Memorandums of William Roe'' (Brighton, 1928). Roe's eldest son William inherited Withdean, living there and dying in 1834;

,
The Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire
', 28th ed. (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1859), p. 772. he had married his cousin, Mary Elizabeth (died 1842), daughter of Daniel Byam Mathew, of

Felix Hall Felix Hall was a man from Alabama who, at age 19, was lynched Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a con ...

."Mary Elizabeth Roe (''née'' Mathew)"
''

Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery The Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery, formerly the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-ownership, is a research centre of University College, London (UCL) which focuses on revealing the impact of Britis ...

'' (

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

). Retrieved 23 August 2021. The younger William received an income from an estate called Cochrane's, Old North Sound, in

Antigua Antigua ( ), also known as Waladli or Wadadli by the native population, is an island in the Lesser Antilles. It is one of the Leeward Islands in the Caribbean region and the main island of the country of Antigua and Barbuda. Antigua and Bar ...

, which (with its

slaves Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...

) had been placed in

trust Trust often refers to: * Trust (social science), confidence in or dependence on a person or quality It may also refer to: Business and law * Trust law, a body of law under which one person holds property for the benefit of another * Trust (bus ...

for Roe and his wife by Mathew under the terms of their marriage settlement made in 1815; it was sold by the trustees a year later. The younger Roe and his wife had two sons and a daughter; the sons being George Cholmeley Roe, who died shortly after his birth, and William Dering Adair Roe (1816–1838), who died childless; the daughter Eliza Sophia Frances, who became William Roe the younger's sole heir, married Sir Chaloner Ogle, 3rd Baronet. The Withdean estate passed to her and then to her daughter Hebe Emily Moritana Ogle (died 1889) and was sold by Hebe's widowed daughter-in-law, who was administering the estate for Hebe's husband."People – C"
''Brighton History''. Retrieved 25 August 2021. The elder William Roe's younger son Frederick was a prominent lawyer, who served as Chief Magistrate of the Bow Street Magistrates; created a

baronet A baronet ( or ; abbreviated Bart or Bt) or the female equivalent, a baronetess (, , or ; abbreviation Btss), is the holder of a baronetcy, a hereditary title awarded by the British Crown. The title of baronet is mentioned as early as the 14th ...

in 1836, he died childless in 1866.

Early life and family

Career and later life

Legacy

References

Notes

Citations

Further reading