British lawyer, wreck commissioner and plant collector. A Cambridge graduate, Rothery worked in the admiralty and ecclesiastical courts. In 1860 he took over from his father as legal advisor to the Treasury in matters to do with the Slave Trade Acts and in 1876 became a commissioner to inquire into the circumstances of shipwrecks. This role led him to work on his most famous case, chairing the inquiry into the Tay Bridge disaster of 1879. Tragedy occurred that year when the two-mile bridge collapsed into the Tay Estuary, taking with it a train. Rothery's inquiry concluded in 1880 that the bridge was "badly designed, badly built and badly maintained". Rothery was married to Madelina, daughter of Dr. Garden of Calcutta; they had no children. He died in Bagshot, Surrey. Outside of his professional life, Rothery had a keen interest in natural history. He exchanged correspondence with Joesph Hooker and was elected to the Linnean Society in 1847, following his trip of 1844-1845 during which he made plant collections. In South America and the West Indies.

Sources:
Anon., 1849, Proceedings of the Linnean Society, 1: 330
G. C. Boase, rev. Eric Metcalfe, 2004, "Rothery, Henry Cadogan (1817–1888)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:
http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/24156, accessed 8 Dec 2009
Darwin Correspondence Project Database, letter no. 6405:
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/entry-6405, accessed 8 December 2009.