William Rothery
'Reproduction by order of Miss Emma Rothery'

Volume 7, page 334, entry number 9581.

A bust of William Rothery sculpted by Richard Cockle Lucas (1800-1883). According to the Silvy daybooks, this was a 'Reproduction by order of [his daughter] Miss Emma Rothery.' The daybooks don't make it clear whether Miss Rothery brought her father's bust to the studio and had Silvy photograph it or if she brought a photograph of the bust that had previously been taken by another photographer and had him reproduce that. 

William Rothery was the legal adviser to the Treasury on all matters connected with the slave trade. He died at his home in Stratford Place on 6 March 1864, leaving an estate valued at £16,000. 

'Of the men who seem to connect the present with the past history of this country another has just been taken away whose long and meritorious services as a public servant deserves a passing notice at our hands. Mr William Rothery, who was until lately the legal adviser to the Treasury on all matters connected with the slave trade, died on the 6th inst., at the advanced age of 89 years. He was born on the 9th of April, 1775, a few days only before the first blood was shed in the War of American Independence. [...] In early life Mr Rothery entered the office of the King's Proctor in Doctor's Commons, and by his ability and steady application to business soon rose to the head of that establishment. The zeal and ability which he showed in the discharge of his duties gained for him the good will and regard of the two greatest judges who have ever presided in the Court of Admiralty - Lord Stowell and Dr Lushington, with both of whom he was on terms of the closest intimacy. In 1821 Mr Rothery ws appointed by the Treasury to be their Lordships' referee on slave trade matters, and held that appointment up to the year 1860, when at the advanced age of 85, owing to increasing infirmities, he was compelled to resign his office; but so high an opinion had the Treasury of his long and faithful services that on his retirement they granted him for his life a pension almost equal to the full amount of his salary. The questions on which he had occasionally to advise her Majesty's Government requred the exercise of the greatest judgment and discretion, and his long experience in the King's Proctor's Office during the European and American Wars proved to be of essential service to him. There were very few of the leading statesmen either of this or the past generation to whom he was not well known, and who had not at one time or another occasion to rely upon his great practical knowledge and sound judgment. [...] There are very few indeed who have led so long and useful a life, fewer still who through all the trials and difficulties of life have shown a more equable temper, or been more respected by those with whom he had to act in business, and especially by the civil servants of the Crown' (Cheltenham Journal and Gloucestershire Fashionable Weekly Gazette, 26 March 1864).