Samuel Roberts

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.

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", composed in a quantitative metre but otherwise resembling William Blake's earlier treatments of the theme in his Songs of Innocence and of Experience.

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" 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. 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.

Books by Roberts

Tales of the Poor, or Infant Sufferings (1813); 2nd series (London, 1829), poetry and fiction dealing with the young

The Blind Man and his Son and other short fictions (London, 1816)

The State Lottery, a Dream (London, 1817), with James Montgomery

Chimney Sweepers' Boys: The Resolutions and Petition to Parliament of the Inhabitants of Sheffield (Sheffield, 1817)

A Defence of the Poor Laws (Sheffield 1819)

A Letter to John Bull, to which is added the sketch of a plan for the safe, speedy and effectual abolition of slavery (London 1823), the opening of Roberts' campaign against slavery

Tom and Charles, or the Two Grinders (1823); included in Yorkshire Tales

The World of Children, or The Life & Adventures of Arthur Fitzaimer, Esq (1829); included in Yorkshire Tales

Parallel Miracles, or the Jews and the Gypsies (London, 1830)

Tocsin the third: Signs of the times, Addressed to British Legislators (Sheffield 1831), comments on the slavery debate

Eyam: its Trials and its Triumphs (Sheffield, 1834)

England's Passing Bell, or the obsequies of national holiness, liberty, and honour (Sheffield 1834), on the rights of the poor

Thoughts on War, addressed to people of all classes (Sheffield, 1834), an 11-page pamphlet supporting the formation of the Auxiliary Peace Society