Sculptor and mason born in Brierley, South Yorkshire. His father, Thomas Rogerson, and at least two of his brothers, were also masons. By 1861, Joseph had moved to Liverpool, describing himself in that year’s census as a sculptor. He married in 1865, and by 1871 he and his wife were living at the first of several addresses in Liverpool. He exhibited in Liverpool’s Autumn Exhibition from 1871–1899, his works comprising mostly portrait busts and statuettes. In 1888, following the scandalised reaction to the first two of Thomas Stirling Lee’s intended cycle of six relief panels for the exterior of St George’s Hall, Liverpool – and the subsequent termination by Liverpool City Council of his contract – Rogerson exhibited at that year’s Autumn Exhibition, A different treatment of the subject of one of the St George’s Hall Panels (his bid was unsuccessful and the remaining panels were allotted to C.J. Allen and Conrad Dressler). Rogerson’s public sculpture commissions include architectural sculpture for James Francis Doyle’s Accrington Market Hall, including, over the centre bay, two three-figure groups with agricultural produce (1868); architectural sculpture for James Murdoch Hay’s Birkenhead School of Science and Art (now the John Laird Centre), comprising two caryatids supporting the portico and high relief carvings in the semi-circular tympana over the façade’s six principal windows (1870–71); a high relief portrait bust in bronze and architectural ornamentation in stone for the William Simpson Memorial Fountain (designed by Thomas Cox), Chapel Street, Liverpool (1884–85); and the Monument to the Revd William Williams (designed by Richard Owens) for the churchyard of St Mary’s Church, near Llandovery, Carmarthenshire, plus a carved pulpit for the Williams Pantycelyn Memorial Chapel, on Llandovery’s High Street. Rogerson died, aged 77, on 4 May 1907 and was buried in Toxteth Park Cemetery, Liverpool.
Ancestry website sources: Church of England Births and Baptisms … Felkirk, St Peter, with Brierley, St Paul [West Yorkshire] 1830; England censuses for 1851, 1861, 1871, 1881, 1891 and 1901; England and Scotland, Select Cemetery Registers … Toxteth Park Cemetery 1906–1910; England and Wales, National Probate Calendar … 1907
Bibliography: Cadw – Full Report for Listed Buildings: ‘Monument & memorial of William Williams in churchyard of St Mary’s Church’; T. Cavanagh, Public Sculpture of Liverpool, Liverpool, 1997, pp. 18–20; Lancashire Telegraph (online): ‘Accrington Market Hall statues brought down to earth’ (25 June 2020); Liverpool and Preston Street and Trade Directories; Mapping Sculpture; E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. 37–38.
Terry Cavanagh, September 2025