Thomas Edward Rowcroft

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Thomas Edward Rowcroft (3 September 1769 – 7 December 1824) was a leading English merchant and an alderman of the City of London. He supported charitable causes, such as the Subscription for the Irish Famine and the Waterloo Subscription for soldiers’ families, and backed literary and artistic societies.

George Canning appointed him as the first British diplomatic representative in Peru. He arrived in Lima as consul general on 8 June 1824, accompanied by his daughter Leonora Maria. His son Charles was in Tasmania, Australia, and left there on the ship Cumberland in September 1825; another son, Horatio Nelson Horace Rowcroft, was farming in Tasmania at that time.

Lima was under royalist control and conditions were harsh. Soon after Rowcroft’s arrival, Simón Bolívar returned to Lima and the Spanish retreated to the Castle of Real Felipe. Rowcroft went to Callao to deliver letters to HMS Cambridge, commanded by Captain Thomas James Maling, and obtained a safe pass through the royalist lines. On returning, the coach with the pass was struck by a hail of bullets. Rowcroft was wounded in the hand and torso and died on 7 December 1824 at the home of a British merchant. Leonora was taken aboard HMS Cambridge. Rowcroft was buried on 11 December 1824 on San Lorenzo Island off Callao. It is believed he was accidentally shot by Bolivar’s forces; some say the safe pass carried a death sentence.

Leonora returned to England the following year after selling her father’s goods and married Alfred Samuel Robinson, a Royal Navy lieutenant, on 4 December 1827.

At Markham College, Rowcroft House is the only building not named after a military figure.