Roger North (17th century)

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This article is about Roger North, a 17th century English lawyer and biographer. For other uses, see Roger North (disambiguation).

Roger North KC (September 3, 1653 – March 1, 1734), English lawyer, biographer, and amateur musician, was the sixth son of the 4th Baron North.

He acquired a good practice at the bar, being helped by his elder brother Francis, who became lord chancellor and was created Baron Guilford, and in 1684 he became solicitor-general to the Duke of York. In 1685, he was chosen as a Tory Member of Parliament for Dunwich. But the Revolution stopped his advancement, and he retired to his estate of Rougham in Norfolk, and increased his fortune by marrying the daughter of Sir Robert Gayer.

He collected books, and was constantly occupied in writing. But he is best known for his Lives of the Norths, published after his death, together with his own autobiography (see the edition in Bohns Standard Library, 1890, by Jessopp), a classic authority for the period. His comments on musical performance practice, in particular, have proven invaluable for musicologists researching the Baroque style in England. In addition to his writing on performance practice he wrote on musical aesthetics, on pedagogy, and on tuning and temperament; one of his most important achievements in this regard was devising a practical and detailed system for mean-tone tuning in the age before equal temperament.

He died at Rougham on March 1, 1734, leaving a family from whom the Norths of Rougham are descended.

[edit] Sources and references

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition article "Roger North", a publication now in the public domain.
• Roger North's The Musicall Grammarian and Theory of Sounds: digests of the manuscripts, ed. M. Chan and J. C. Kassler, University of New South Wales, Kensington, 1988.

Parliament of England
Preceded by Sir Philip Skippon Sir Robert Kemp, Bt	Member of Parliament for Dunwich with Thomas Knyvett 1685–1689	Succeeded by Sir Philip Skippon Sir Robert Rich, Bt