Wilfrid Roberts

Roberts at the 1939 Liberal Assembly, The Spa, Scarborough. On the left is Helen de Guerry Simpson, the Isle of Wight Prospective Liberal Candidate

Wilfrid Hubert Wace Roberts (28 August 1900 – 26 May 1991) was a radical British Liberal Party politician who later joined the Labour Party.

Background

Roberts was born to Charles Henry Roberts, who became Liberal MP for Lincoln, and Lady Cecilia Maude Roberts, daughter of the 9th Earl of Carlisle.^[1] He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, and Balliol College, Oxford.^[2] Roberts was married three times. Firstly, in 1923, to Margaret Jennings, who died in 1924, shortly after the birth of a daughter; secondly, in 1928, to Anne Constance Jennings, with whom he had two further daughters, the marriage ending in divorce in 1957; and thirdly, to Kate Sawyer.^[3]

Career

Roberts became a farmer.^[4] In 1934 and 1935 he broadcast two series of talks, Living in Cumberland, on the BBC Home Service. He was also the owner of the Carlisle Journal newspaper, which ceased publication in 1969. He served as a Justice of the peace.^[5] At the outbreak of World War Two he was commissioned in the Border Regiment.

Political career

Roberts first political involvement came as a district councillor.^[6] He first stood for parliament, without success, for North Cumberland in 1931, losing by 1,277 votes.

He became a Member of Parliament (MP) for North Cumberland at the 1935 election, gaining the seat from the Conservatives.

He was appointed by the Liberal leader, Sir Archie Sinclair, as an Assistant Whip in the House of Commons, working under the Chief Whip Sir Percy Harris.^[9] Following on from his BBC talks on Living in Cumberland, Roberts was chosen by the BBC as one of their regular speakers on The Week at Westminster. An internal BBC memo in 1939 described Roberts as having a "pleasant manner".^[10]

Spanish Civil War

At the time of the Spanish Civil War, Roberts was nicknamed "MP for Spain".^[11] He was Secretary of the National Joint Committee for Spanish Relief, the formation of which from the Parliamentary Committee for Spain he proposed. He worked with Conservative MP the Duchess of Atholl as Chair,^[12] David Grenfell of the Labour Party, and Eleanor Rathbone the Independent MP,^[13] from 1937 to 1940.^[14][15] He was also joint secretary, with the Conservative MP John Macnamara, of the Basque Children's Committee.^[16] He worked in the relief effort for Basque refugees, with Christopher Hill.^[17]

Popular Front

Roberts was a supporter of the Popular Front seeking an alliance between left-of-centre political forces.^[18] The Popular Front was not officially endorsed by the Liberal Party but supported by a number of other Liberal MPs such as Megan Lloyd George and Richard Acland.^[19] Roberts spoke at the 1938 Emergency Conference for a Popular Front.^[20] The Popular Front gained additional credibility when it was advocated by Sir Stafford Cripps.

In the late 1930s, Roberts was an active member of the Left Book Club^[21] along with other radical Liberals Richard Acland, Thomas Horabin and Geoffrey Mander. The club was a publishing company founded in 1936 that provided a vehicle for radical Liberals, Socialists and Communists. The organisation grew to the point that it held public meetings and rallies.

Second World War

From 1941-42 he served as Parliamentary Private Secretary (PPS) to the Liberal Leader, Sir Archibald Sinclair, who at the time was Secretary of State for Air in the Coalition Government. In November 1941 the Liberal Lancelot Spicer founded the 'Liberal Action Group' a pressure group inside of the Liberal Party that lobbied for the party to withdraw from the wartime electoral truce.^[22] The group also sought to rally progressive opinion both inside and outside the Liberal party. Roberts was a founding member of the group along with Megan Lloyd George, Tom Horabin, Clement Davies, Vernon Bartlett and William Beveridge.^[23] Roberts sought to re-energise the Liberal Party during the war. He became Chairman of the Organising Committee of the party.^[24] In 1942 he was behind moves to get the annual Liberal Party Assembly in August to debate a series of progressive social policies.^[25] This was a few months before the Beveridge Report was published in which Liberal academic William Beveridge was to outline his programme for social reform. Following the publication of the Beveridge Report, Roberts declared himself a supporter of the propsals. At a 1943 Liberal conference, he told the gathering "We must plan our economic system to make the very best use of all our resources".^[26] In August 1943 Roberts was part of a delegation of senior Liberal party members who met with leaders of the Liberal Nationals to discuss the possibility of merger. The discussions came to nothing.^[27] In 1944 he urged his party leader Sir Archie Sinclair to agree to take part in a series of public meetings, advancing Liberal party policy. However, Sinclair declined as the other two party leaders, Winston Churchill and Clement Attlee were not doing so.^[28] At the end of the war he was re-elected to parliament.

After the war he became chairman of the House of Commons Estimates sub-committee. At the 1950 general election, following boundary changes, Roberts contested the re-drawn seat of Penrith and the Border but lost to the Conservative. In the three previous elections, Labour had not opposed him but, in 1950, they intervened and cost him his seat.

In July 1956 he joined the Labour Party^[30] and at the 1959 election fought Hexham as a Labour candidate without success.

He was elected as a Labour councillor in Carlisle.

References

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Wilfrid Roberts
• Catalogue of Roberts' papers held in the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick
• Documents on Roberts' role in the Spanish Civil War from "Trabajadores: The Spanish Civil War through the eyes of organised labour", a digitised collection of more than 13,000 pages of documents from the archives of the British Trades Union Congress held in the Modern Records Centre, University of Warwick