ordained on 7 June 1693 as minister for Poulton-in-the-Fylde, Lancashire, by Frankland, Oliver Heywood [q. v.], and others. From Poulton he removed to Tunley, near Wigan. He lived at Wrightington, near Wigan, and had divinity students as his pupils. From 1711, still retaining the charge of Tunley (where he was living in 1713), he ministered also in Bass House, Walmersley, near Bury, Lancashire, to a congregation originally gathered by Henry Pendlebury [q. v.] Rothwell, who had property in the district, gave land at Holcombe for a nonconformist chapel; this, since known as Dundee Chapel, was opened on 5 Aug. 1712, though not conveyed to trustees till 1722. Here in 1717 Rothwell had five hundred and seventy hearers, including twenty-three county voters. Many of his congregation lived in Bury, and for their accommodation a chapel was built (1719) in Silver Street, Bury, Rothwell, assisted by Thomas Braddock (1695–1770), who had been his pupil, served both chapels. He still continued to take pupils in philosophy and theology. He died on 8 Feb. 1731, and was buried on 10 Feb. in his chapel at Holcombe.
He published: 1. ‘Pædobaptismus Vindicatus,’ 1693, 4to; answered by Benjamin Keach [q. v.] 2. ‘A Vindication of Presbyterian Ordination and Baptism,’ 1721, 8vo: a curious treatise, occasioned by the recent rebaptising of dissenters at Bury parish church and elsewhere; Rothwell argues (p. 58) that ‘either presbyterian baptisms are good or King Charles was no Christian.’
[Hunter's Oliver Heywood, 1842, p. 379; Dickenson's Register (Turner), 1881, p. 308; Turner's Oliver Heywood's Diaries, 1885, iv. 315; Nightingale's Lancashire Nonconformity [1892], iii. 158 sq., iv. 26 sq.; Elliott's Country and Church of the Cheeryble Brothers, 1893, pp. 196 sq.]
ROTHWELL, RICHARD (1800–1868), painter, was born at Athlone, Ireland, in 1800, and received his art training in Dublin, where he worked for a few years. On the incorporation of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1826 he was nominated one of the original associates, and in the same year was elected a full member. Soon afterwards he removed to London, where he became Sir Thomas Lawrence's chief assistant. On the death of Lawrence, Rothwell was entrusted with the completion of his commissions, and had a fair prospect of succeeding to his practice; but he was unable to sustain the reputation which his early works, painted in the manner of Lawrence, gained for him. From 1830 to 1849 he was a frequent exhibitor at the Royal Academy of portraits and fancy subjects, the former class including the Duchess of Kent, the Prince of Leiningen, Viscount Beresford, William Huskisson, and other distinguished persons. During the same period he contributed also to the Royal Hibernian Academy. About 1846 Rothwell returned to Dublin, where, having resigned in 1837, he was re-elected R.H.A. in 1847. From 1849 to 1854 he was again in London, and then removed to Leamington, whence he sent to the Royal Academy in 1858 ‘A Remembrance of the Carnival;’ in 1860 two portraits, and in 1862 ‘The Student's Aspiration.’ The last years of his life were passed abroad, first in Paris and then in Rome, where he died in September 1868. Rothwell's portraits of Huskisson and Lord Beresford are in the National Portrait Gallery, London, and those of himself and Matthew Kendrick, R.H.A., in the National Gallery of Ireland. Three of his fancy subjects, ‘The Little Roamer,’ ‘Noviciate Mendicant,’ and ‘The very Picture of Idleness,’ are in the South Kensington Museum. His ‘Fisherman's Children’ was engraved by S. Sangster for the Irish Art Union.
[Redgrave's Dict. of Artists; Bryan's Dict. of Painters and Engravers, ed. Armstrong; Art Journal, 1868, p. 245; Royal Academy Catalogues; information kindly furnished by S. Catterson Smith, esq., R.H.A.]
ROTIER. [See Roettier.]
ROUBILIAC or ROUBILLAC, LOUIS FRANÇOIS (1695–1762), sculptor, was born at Lyons in 1695. He is said to have studied under Nicolas Coustou, and was subsequently a pupil of Balthazar, sculptor to the elector of Saxony. He is sometimes alleged to have migrated to this country as early as 1720; but as he is not definitely heard of in England until 1738, and as he gained a second Grand Prix from the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture at Paris in 1730, it is probable that his permanent settlement here is subsequent to the last-named date. According to Northcote (Life of Reynolds, 1813, p. 29), his first employment in England was with Thomas Carter of Knightsbridge, whose work was chiefly monumental, and who perhaps made use of his French assistant as a ‘botcher of antiques.’ Soon after he was lucky enough to find in Vauxhall Gardens (not opened until 1732) a valuable pocket-book belonging to Horace Walpole's brother Edward, who subsequently became his patron and protector (ib.) By Edward Walpole he was introduced to Cheere (afterwards Sir Henry), who had at Hyde Park Corner a famous stone-yard of statues and leaden figures for gardens, which is often mentioned
