Samuel Roberts (Sheffield writer)

Samuel Roberts, a Sheffield cutler, author and supporter of benevolent causes, was born in the city on 18 April 1763. He died there at the age of 85 on 24 July 1848 and was buried in Anston churchyard.

For other people named Samuel Roberts, see Samuel Roberts (disambiguation).

An engraving of Samuel Roberts' portrait, used as the frontispiece to his books

Life

Samuel Roberts was the second son of the similarly named Sheffield manufacturer and merchant, Samuel Roberts (1732–1799), by his wife Mary Sykes. At the age of fourteen he entered his father's business of silver and plated goods, remaining there until 1784, when he established a firm of his own with fellow apprentice George Cadman (1760–1823). The business prospered and by 1841 had a London showroom at Duke Street, Adelphi. Regarded as one of the ablest manufacturers in Sheffield, Roberts also registered a string of patents for his various innovations.[1]

As a successful and prosperous businessman, he was made an Overseer of the Poor in 1804, a position he shared with James Montgomery, to whose newspaper The Sheffield Iris he now began to contribute. Soon after this, the two started to cooperate in philanthropic schemes. Their first project was forming an association for the abolition of the use of climbing boys in sweeping chimneys, which shortly became a national campaign. In support of this Roberts wrote "The Song of the Poor Little Sweep",[2] composed in a quantitative metre but otherwise resembling William Blake's earlier treatments of the theme in his Songs of Innocence and of Experience.[3]

From then on, "by a rigid economy of time, he found innumerable opportunities for the exercise of his pen on a great variety of subjects"[4] in both verse and prose. On account of his books, pamphlets, broadsheets, and contributions to the press in support of the socially disenfranchised, Roberts became known as "The Paupers’ Advocate". Among the many other benevolent causes he championed, along with Montgomery, was the abolition of slavery and opposition to war, to capital punishment and, particularly in his final years, to the 1834 Poor Law Amendment Act. In at least one case the two shared in attacking the lottery, where Montgomery added his poem "Thoughts on Wheels" to Roberts' The State Lottery: A Dream (1817). Often, too, Roberts' pamphlets with a purely local appeal were printed from the press of Montgomery's newspaper.

Having married Elizabeth Wright, of Anston, on 22 October 1794, Roberts parented a son (also called Samuel) who followed him into his business. Of his three daughters, the second was Mary Roberts, who became an author in her own right with the long poem The Royal Exile (1822). To this her father contributed a sympathetic biography of its subject, Mary, Queen of Scots.[5] His portrait by local artist William Poole (1799–1888), shows him standing with his cane, hat and gloves in one hand and his watch in the other. An engraving of this appeared as a frontispiece to some of his books.[6]

Books by Roberts

The volume published in the year following Roberts' death and purporting to be his autobiography in reality only contains an autobiographical fragment covering the years up to 1800, before he became a public figure. The greater part is taken up with an anonymous commentary on copious extracts from his writing.[7] It was followed in 1862 by Some Memorials of the Family of Roberts by his son, Samuel.[8] Largely directed to family members, the memoir follows the family line from the first records in Ecclesfield towards the end of the 17th century through to the book's date of publication. Included there is a more succinct biography of his father.

References
  1. Roberts, Cadman & Co.
  2. Autobiography (1849), pp.54–5
  3. Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper" was eventually chosen to appear in the company of Roberts' song in The Chimney-Sweeper's Friend, and Climbing-Boy's Album that Montgomery edited in 1824.
  4. William Cartwright Newsam and John Holland, The Poets of Yorkshire (London 1845), p.146
  5. The Royal Exile: Or Poetical Epistles of Mary, Queen of Scots, During Her Captivity in England; with Other Original Poems, by a Young Lady. Also by Her Father The Life of Queen Mary, Google Books
  6. Smith, Samuel (1896). "Roberts, Samuel (1763-1848)" . Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 48. p. 391.
  7. Autobiography and Select Remains (London, 1849)
  8. Some memorials of the family of Roberts, of Queen's tower, Sheffield
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