Sophia, fifth child of William and Elizabeth Southwell, was born on 4 February 1831 and baptised at St Pancras Old Church on 27 February 1831. She married a surveyor, Charles Rogerson, at St Marylebone church on 13 July 1854. She quickly gave birth to three children, two sons who died in infancy and a daughter Ethel Eliza. Sadly her husband died in 1858 and by the time of the 1861 census, Sophia is to be found as head of household at 16 Baker Street, where her brothers were engaged in their photographic business.

It seems that sometime later in the 1860s Sophia moved to Hastings to work in the household of Robert Boning, another well known photographer, and at some point (probably whilst still working with her brothers in London) became a photographer in her own right. She eventually bought the Hastings business and traded under the name Sophia Rogerson on her own account.

On 1 December 1894 at the age of 61 she remarried at the church of All Saints, Gordon Square, London to William Bailey Catherwood, a widowed London architect and surveyor, and sold the Hastings business. She died in January 1908 and is buried in the family tomb alongside her parents in Highgate cemetery.

David Simkin has given a very full and interesting account of her history as a photographer in Hastings at the Photo History Sussex website.

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