Skip to main content

Alfred Roberts

This article is about Margaret Thatcher's father. For other people with the same name, see Alfred Roberts (disambiguation).
Alfred Roberts
JP
Born18 April 1892
Ringstead, Northamptonshire,England
Died10 February 1970 (aged 77)
Grantham, England
NationalityBritish
OccupationGreengrocer
Known forFather of Margaret Thatcher
Spouse(s)Beatrice Stephenson (m. 1917; her death 1960)[1]
Cecily Hubbard (m. 1965–70)
ChildrenMuriel and Margaret
RelativesMark Thatcher (grandson)
Carol Thatcher (granddaughter)
Alfred Roberts, JP (18 April 1892 – 10 February 1970), known as Alderman Roberts, was an English grocer, local preacher, and politician. He served as Alderman of Grantham from 1943 to 1952 and Mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946. His second daughterMargaret was the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

Biography[edit]

Early life[edit]

Roberts was born in Ringstead, Northamptonshire. He was the fifth of seven children. His father was Benjamin Ebenezer Roberts (28 December 1857 – 17 September 1925),[2] from a Ringstead family, and his mother was Ellen Smith (20 November 1857 – 1 May 1935),[2] whose own mother, Catherine Sullivan, was born at Kenmare in the Republic of Ireland.[2] Ellen's eldest two known siblings were also born in Ireland and her twin brothers in England in 1852. The gap in age between Alfred's aunt Mary and his uncles of around nine years coincides with the Great Famine and it more than likely meant that other siblings perished through starvation or associated diseases. His grandparents possibly left Kenmare in 1849–51 and like two million more came destitute to England. This and the family's hard times may have much to do with the reticence to acknowledge his being part Irish to his daughters.
Roberts' bad eyesight meant he could not enter the family trade of shoemaking. He left school at thirteen in order to help support his family and is listed in the 1911 census as living as a boarder in Oundle, Northamptonshire, and working as a grocer's assistant. He later moved to Grantham in Lincolnshire, where he gained a job as an apprentice in agreengrocers; he had originally wanted to become a teacher. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Roberts, "a deeply patriotic man",[3] applied to enlist in the British Armysix times but was rejected because of his poor eyesight.
Four years after moving to Grantham, Roberts met Beatrice Ethel Stephenson (24 August 1888[1] – 7 December 1960[4]) through the Finkin Street Methodist Church, which he attended every Sunday. They married in Grantham on 28 May 1917 and had two daughters, both born in Grantham: Muriel Cullen (24 May 1921[4] – 3 December 2004[5]) andMargaret Thatcher (1925–2013). In 1919, they bought the grocery shop; and, in 1923, Roberts opened a second shop.

Politics[edit]

Roberts was an "old-fashioned liberal"[3] who believed strongly in individual responsibility and sound finance. He had read and admired John Stuart Mill's On Liberty. He came from a family that traditionally voted Liberal but he believed that the Liberal Party had embraced collectivism and that the Conservatives stood for the old liberalism.[3] His daughter Muriel recalled that Roberts "was always a Liberal at heart".[1] In the 1935 general election, Roberts helped the local Conservative candidate Victor Warrender to win theGrantham constituency.
External image
 Roberts laying down his robes as Alderman in 1952. According to the Margaret Thatcher Foundation: "The picture was published in the paper on 23 May 1952 when Alderman Roberts was voted off the council by the new Labour majority. The event caused great distress to the Roberts family."[6]
In 1927 Roberts was elected to the Grantham town council as an independent. He was also a part-time Justice of the Peace, president of the Chamber of Trade, President of Rotary, a director of the Grantham Building Society and of the Trustee Savings Bank, chairman of the local National Savings Movement, a governor of the local boys' and girls' grammar schools and chairman of the Workers' Educational Association. During the Second World War he was Chief Welfare Officer, directing civil defence.[1] He soon became Chairman of the Finance and Rating Committee, and in 1943 he was elected by the council as Alderman and then served as Mayor of Grantham from November 1945 to 1946, in which he presided over the town's victory celebrations. In his inaugural speech Roberts called for a large programme of expenditure to rebuild the roads, public transport, health and social services for children and to "build houses by the thousand".[7]
On 21 May 1952, Roberts was voted out as Alderman by the first Labour majority on the council and after the vote was taken he proclaimed: "It is now almost nine years since I took up these robes in honour, and now I trust in honour they are laid down."[3] When his daughter Margaret recalled this event, over thirty years later as Prime Minister during an interview with Miriam Stoppard, she said that it was "very emotional" and wept on television.[7]

Personal[edit]

Roberts retired and sold his business in 1958, but continued to preach and remained active in the Rotary Club. Beatrice died in 1960, and Roberts became a widower aged 68. He married again to Cecily Miriam Hubbard in 1965. He died on 10 February 1970, shortly before the June general election, and nine years before his daughter became Prime Minister.[1]
In 1997 the satirical magazine Punch published an article by Professor Bernard Crick featuring allegations, including one from an alleged victim, that Roberts had been involved in several sexual assaults on women. Crick had tried to put the allegations into the public domain before both the 1987 and 1997 elections, but had been rebuffed by various publications. The article claimed that Roberts was inspiration for a lecherous character who was a local councillor and grocer in the 1937 satire of Grantham, Rotten Borough.[8]John Campbell, his daughter's biographer, considered that these allegations were unsubstantiated and dismissed by people who knew him, and that the character in Rotten Borough was a parody of another prominent councilor at the time.[1]

References[edit]

  1. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Campbell, John (2000). Margaret Thatcher; Volume One: The Grocer's Daughter. Pimlico. pp. 4, 11–12, 15, 32. ISBN 0-7126-7418-7.
  2. ^ Jump up to:a b c Davies, Edward J. (2007). The Ancestry of Baroness Thatcher. 42. Lincolnshire History and Archaeology. pp. 40–42.
  3. ^ Jump up to:a b c d Thatcher, Margaret (1995). The Path to Power. HarperCollins. pp. 4, 21, 65. ISBN 978-0-00-638753-4.
  4. ^ Jump up to:a b Aitken, Jonathan (2013). Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality. A&C Black. pp. 9, 104. ISBN 978-1-4088-3186-1.
  5. Jump up^ Twiston Davies, David; Pook, Sally (4 December 2004). "Thatcher's sister and 'best friend' dies". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved 20 May 2017.
  6. Jump up^ Dean, Peter (21 May 1952). Photo of Alfred Roberts laying down his robes as Alderman (voted out by Labour). Grantham Journal. Retrieved 27 May 2017.
  7. ^ Jump up to:a b Young, Hugo (1990). One of Us. Pan. pp. 10, 308.
  8. Jump up^ Nuthall, Keith (22 June 1997). "Thatcher's dad: mayor, preacher, groper". The Independent. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Slim Harpo

James Isaac Moore  (January 11, 1924 – January 31, 1970), [1] [nb 1]  better known by his stage name  Slim Harpo , was an American blues  musician, a leading exponent of the  swamp blues  style, and "one of the most commercially successful blues artists of his day". [2]  His most successful and influential recordings included " I'm a King Bee " (1957), "Rainin' In My Heart" (1961), and " Baby Scratch My Back " (1966) which reached no. 1 on the  R&B chart  and no.16 on the  US pop chart . A master of the  blues harmonica , his stage name  was derived from the popular nickname for that instrument, the "harp". [3] Contents    [ hide ]  1 Life and career 2 Influence 3 Discography 3.1 Singles 3.2 Albums 3.3 Compilation albums 4 Notes 5 References 6 Further reading 7 External links Life and career [ edit ] Moore was born in  Lobdell, Louisiana , [4]  the eldest child in his fa...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell ,  OM ,  FRS [61]  ( / ˈ r ʌ s əl / ; 18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British philosopher, logician , mathematician, historian, writer,  social critic , political activist and  Nobel laureate . [62] [63]  At various points in his life, Russell considered himself a liberal, a socialist and a  pacifist , but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". [64]  Russell was born in  Monmouthshire  into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom. [65] In the early 20th century, Russell led the British "revolt against  idealism ". [66]  He is considered one of the founders of  analytic philosophy  along with his predecessor  Gottlob Frege , colleague  G. E. Moore  and protégé  Ludwig Wittgenstein . He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier  logicians . [63]...
Post a Comment
Read more

Alfred Newman (composer)

Alfred Newman  (March 17, 1901 – February 17, 1970) [1]  was an American  composer , arranger, and conductor of film music. From his start as a music prodigy, he came to be regarded as a respected figure in the history of film music. He won nine Academy Awards and was nominated forty-three times. In a career spanning more than four decades, Newman composed the scores for over 200 motion pictures. Some of his most famous scores include  Wuthering Heights ,  The Hunchback of Notre Dame ,  The Mark of Zorro ,  How Green Was My Valley ,  The Song of Bernadette ,  Captain from Castile ,  All About Eve ,  Love is a Many Splendored Thing ,  Anastasia ,  The Diary of Anne Frank ,  How The West Was Won ,  The Greatest Story Ever Told , and his final score,  Airport , all of which were nominated for or won Academy Awards. Newman was also highly regarded as a conductor, and arranged and conducted many scores by ot...
Post a Comment
Read more