Welsh Journals

Search over 450 titles and 1.2 million pages

The Three Rogers Benefactors to Guilsfield Parish (Continued from Volume 55, page 147) By WILLIAM ARTHUR GRIFFITHS, Officier d'Academie In my article above quoted I extended a welcome to the Very Rev. Edgar Rogers, O.B.E., M.A., F.S.A., late Dean of Bocking, Essex, on his becoming a member of the Powys-land Club. I now, alas, have to pay a tribute to his memory owing to his death on 30th January, 1961, at the age of 87. As mentioned in my article, Dean Rogers was the grandson of John Rogers of Grove Park, Nevin, Liverpool, who was born at Rhosbrynbwa, Meifod, on 4th January, 1808. He was educated at St. John's College, Oxford, and obtained his B.A. in 1896, and his M.A. in 1901. In 1897 he took Holy Orders and was a Curate in Wigan, Lancashire, from 1897 to 1904. He moved to London to become Vicar of St. Sepulchre, Holborn, from 1904 to 1912. He then became Chaplain General and Secretary of the Church Lads' Brigade until 1931. He was awarded the O.B.E. in 1919. He held high office in the Order of St. John of Jerusalem and took a great interest in its history. He specialised in the ancient coins of Palestine, and his published works include The Handy Guide to Jewish Coins, published in 1913; The Second and Third Seleucid Coinage of Tyre, in 1928; and The Copper Coinage of Thessaly, in 1933. He was made an F.S.A. in 1927. While I was serving in H.M. Dockyard, Malta, from 1915 to 1920, and again from 1934 to 1939, I did a lot of excavation work on the ancient Temples there, specialising in neolithic pottery. Carthaginian and Roman coins were often found but were outside my own special subject. I have one or two coins still in my possession and I sent a Carthaginian coin of about 250 B.C. to Dean Rogers to examine. This coin bears on one side the head in profile of Proserpine, daughter of Ceres, Goddess of Corn, and a horse's head, facing left, erased at the neck, on the other. I mentioned to the Dean the ancient belief of the Eastern origin of the Welsh and that a number of Welsh families trace their descent back to "Beli Mawr" of the First Century, B.C. The name "Beli" suggests an "Old Testament" connec- tion in itself. The ancient Kingdom of Powys included the River Dee Valley and the River Severn Valley with their sea approaches. The most ancient traditional