(1) Bearing the Yoke in his Youth
Brother Roberts wrote an autobiography covering his years up to 1871, My Days and My Ways, and later it was completed by Brother CC Walker. There is also the biography by Brother Islip Collyer, written from 1943 to 1945 in The Testimony magazine. Brother Roberts’ brother-in-law, William Norrie, published The Early History of the Gospel of the Kingdom of God in Britain from 1904 to 1906.
Both Brother Thomas and Brother Roberts were passionate about the Truth. However Brother Roberts’ role was different as he had to deal with a rapidly growing community with few precedents, procedures or, in some cases, defined doctrines in place.
Birth – 1839
“I was born in the city of Aberdeen, in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, on the 8th of April, 1839; so the evidence goes to prove. I believe the house is still standing in Link (sic) Street where the (for me as yet) unhappy event occurred.”
My Days and My Ways, page 9
Parents – John (1806–1871) and Eliza (1807–1900)
Both Brother Roberts’ parents were baptised on May 7th 1869.
“These, the father and mother of the Editor, have yielded to the claims of the truth, after a struggle of nearly twenty years – so far as the latter is concerned. The great obstacle was a former immersion, but this, with other nearly equally formidable difficulties, finally gave way before the battering rams brought to bear of late.”
Siblings
The children of John and Eliza Roberts were:
- Barbara – 1827 to 1873 (baptised at 36, died aged 46)
- John – 1832 to 1874 (baptised at 25, died aged 42)
- Arthur – 1837 to 1890 (baptised, died aged 53)
- Robert – 1839 to 1898 (baptised at 14 and 23, died aged 59)
- David – 1841 to 1908 (baptised at 29, died aged 66)
- William – 184? to 18?? (drowned at sea)
- Ebenezer – 1847 to 1870 (baptised at 23, died aged 23) Four others died in infancy, a not unusual event in those days.
Early Years
In 1925 Brother Thomas Sturgess (1846–1932, baptised 1877) wrote of his reminiscences of Brothers Thomas and Roberts. He referred to conversations with Brother Roberts’ mother, who lived until 1900.
“She told me in quite a matter-of-fact way of the usual Saturday night incident under rather meagre conditions. ‘Where we lived in Scotland it was very cold, and I never approved of bathing the children in cold water.’ She would fill the bath tub half full of water, then put the poker in the fire, and when it was red hot would plunge it into the tub of cold water. The cold shock being somewhat mitigated, the children would then take their warm (?) bath. Their staple diet was oatmeal and fish.”
Brother Thomas’ visit to Britain – 1848 to 1850
The impact of his visit was significant. It established a community of believers in Britain, and particularly in Scotland. It has been estimated that by 1864 two thirds of all believers in Britain lived in Scotland. This community was the one that Robert Roberts contacted three years later.
Employment
Brother Roberts left school at eleven and held the following jobs. During the early years he studied at night school, his subjects being Latin and Pitman’s shorthand.
1850 – Work in a rope cellar, then in a grocer’s shop.
1851 – Lithographic department of a printer (3 months); letterpress department (12 months); assistant to photographer.
1852 – Unemployed; then apprentice to a druggist for 4 years.
1856 – Reporter for The Aberdeen Daily Telegraph for a few months (he left because he would not illegally copy telegrams).
1857 – Unemployed, except for assisting reporters of other newspapers.
1858 – Reporter for The Caledonian Mercury in Edinburgh (dismissed for a copying error); reporter for The Examiner in Huddersfield.
1861 – Worked for phrenologist (6 months); return to The Examiner.
1864 – Occasional reporting work and shorthand lessons in Birmingham; reporting commission for The Birmingham Daily Post, then appointed to the staff.
1865 – Worked for the Bankruptcy Court.
1870 – Full time editor of The Christadelphian.
There are some salutary lessons for us from the various events associated with Brother Roberts’ early employment. To some he may appear foolhardy but what is clear is that he was motivated by several sterling characteristics:
- His early expertise in writing fitted him for reporting and editorial work.
- He had a strong belief in the hand of Providence in his life.
- He had a strong desire to preach the gospel in whatever way he could and looked for employment to enable this to occur as widely as possible.
- His conscience motivated him to establish and maintain young ecclesias.
I wonder if similar positive motives govern our lives!
Baptism – 1853
Returning to his youth we will now follow his spiritual development. At the age of twelve he happened to read some works of Brother Thomas – a copy of the Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, and later Elpis Israel. This led him to cease attending the Baptist chapel on Sunday afternoons, and seek out the brethren in the town.
“I had discovered that there was a small meeting of believers in the things taught by Dr. Thomas. It was in a curious corner, and in a curious building. The meeting place was an upper room in this castle, up a spiral staircase, entered by a door not far from the dark deserted end of the road. It was a room about 10 or 12 feet square, and about the same height. There was a table in the centre, and benches round the sides. About twenty people were assembled – all plain, unpretending people of the working class.”
My Days and My Ways, page 18
“My immersion into Christ had taken place in 1853, when I was 14 years old. I was examined by brethren A. Black and J. Mowatt, and immersed by the former in the River Dee, about a mile outside the town. A fisherman’s hut afforded undressing convenience. It was a beautiful summer’s Sunday morning. There was a crowd of Sunday strollers on the bank, who gave a loud laugh when the act of baptism was performed.”
My Days and My Ways, page 22
The Bible Companion
Without doubt one of the most unifying and edifying features of the Christadelphian community worldwide and for over 150 years is the daily reading chart called The Bible Companion.
“It was about this time [of his baptism] I commenced the systematic reading of the Scriptures, which is now so general a practice, with the aid of The Bible Companion. I found I must read, first for information, and then for daily sustenance in the things of the Spirit. Reading led to marking special passages with ink – arising from the need for ready quotation in conversation with those who opposed the truth.
My Bible reading was at first discursive. Then I began to see the need for system. I adopted a system of my own. I divided the Old Testament into four parts, and the New Testament into three parts … I continued this for eight months, gradually finding it too much for continuance. I then reduced the whole to four parts, taking two and two, breakfast and dinner. This I persevered with for some years, and finally came down to three at one sitting – which I have continued ever since.”
My Days and My Ways, page 23
Early speaking
As a youth Brother Roberts was not a natural speaker. (At thirteen) “I took lessons in Latin, and learnt Pitman’s shorthand … The class met once a week, and was a great help to me in the matter of learning to speak and write.
I remember my first attempt at the former. I had never previously uttered two consecutive sentences, otherwise than in conversation. I was called on, in rotation with the other members, to make some criticism on an essay that had been read. I got up in imitation of the others; I leant forward, with my hands helplessly outspread on the table before me. My brain got into a whirl. I managed to gasp out a few words and then sat down. In itself, the effort was a frightful failure: but it was of great importance as the breaking of the ice. Next time I was called on, the ordeal was not so severe, and gradually the embarrassment diminished with every occasion, until I found facility of utterance taking its place.”
My Days and My Ways, pages 21–22
Experience, as it so often does for us, improved Brother Roberts’ speaking ability.
Marriage – 1859
Brother Robert Roberts married Sister Jane Norrie of Edinburgh on his twentieth birthday, 8 April 1859. Mourning the fact that not all the brethren in Edinburgh saw the truth as he did, Robert Roberts found Jane to be a great support.
Health
There is some evidence that Brother Roberts was not of a particularly robust nature, even as a boy. Added to this, his dietary habits led to severe illness. His health suffered severely when dealing with difficult ecclesial issues, especially those that led to a division. In 1873 ‘Renunciationism’ arose resulting in Brother Roberts being affected for six months. Brother Evans wrote of this time (1873).
“I remember being told that bro. Roberts’ nervous condition after these meetings was so disturbed that he was confined to bed, and at the Sunday morning meeting on Sept. 14 a letter written by sis. Roberts at the dictation of bro. Roberts was read explaining that his doctor kept him in bed through illness. He implored the brethren to refuse to follow those who were inclined to follow the ‘new theory’. It was about two weeks later before bro. Roberts could resume activities.”
The Christadelphian, 1959, pages 292–293 The ‘unbreakable glass’ disaster and the ‘Resurrectional Responsibility’ dispute in 1894–5 also had a severe effect on Brother Roberts’ health, resulting in him deciding to travel to Australia and New Zealand. His death in September 1898 at the age of only 59 suggests not simply some physical weakness but this compounded with stress from ecclesial work.
Family
Brother and Sister Roberts had seven children, four of whom died young.
- Agnes (born ~4/1860, died late 1860 – a few months old)
- Lydia Jane (born ~10/1861, died ~2/1862 – 4 months old)
- Edward Augustus (born 1863, baptised ~1/1878, married Mary Matthews)
- Eusebia (born 1866, baptised ~4/1884, married Thomas H. Firth in Melbourne on 8/2/1898, died 7/2/1951 – 84 years old)
- John Thomas (born 1868, died 22/11/1872 of scarlet fever – 4 years old)
- Ellen (born 1870, died ~12/1872 of scarlet fever – 2 years old)
- Sarah Jane (born 9/7/1872, baptised 11/7/1889, married Charles Ladson in 3/10/1904, died 16/4/1965 – 92 years old)
In the final year of his life Brother Roberts heard that his son Edward had left the Truth:(
“As Edward Roberts became a prominent and wealthy doctor in London, he lost interest in the truth, and left it, desiring the riches offered by the world, and taking with him his sister wife. Edward informed brother Roberts of these plans shortly before his death. Sister Sarah Jane Ladson felt this news was partly responsible for the heart attack of her grieving father in San Francisco in 1898, and called it his ‘crowning sorrow’…
‘The crowning sorrow of his life, (what I have always thought hastened his end) – was the totally unexpected defection from The Faith of my brother.’ She continues: ‘My father never met Edward after the said ‘revelation’ of his true state of mind, which came after he left for Australia. [Though he wrote him. I should like to have seen that letter!] It stunned us all …’” – May 1959.
http://www.tlcecclesia.org/id38.htm
Grandchildren
Of the children of Robert Roberts who lived to maturity and married the following grandchildren are known:
Children of Edward Augustus
- Douglas Roberts (perhaps about 4 in 1897)
- Eric Roberts
- Enid Roberts
Children of Sarah Jane Ladson
- Edith Ladson (born 1908, baptised 1928)
- Una Ladson (died at 4 years old)
Ecclesias where Brother Roberts was a Member
Brother Roberts was a member of five ecclesias in Britain:
- Aberdeen, Scotland – 1853 to October 1857
- Edinburgh, Scotland – October 1857 to August 1858
- Halifax, England – August 1858 to May 1861
- Huddersfield, England – May 1861 to the end of 1863
- Birmingham, England – start of 1864 to 1898.
Brother Thomas spoke in Birmingham in 1849 and 1850. Early in 1861 Brother Roberts visited Birmingham on his employment with Fowler and Wells, Phrenologists. In July 1862 Brother Thomas, on his second visit to Britain, spoke in Birmingham. He subsequently urged Brother Roberts to move there, believing the prospects for ecclesial growth were much better than in Huddersfield. He has been proved right to a marvellous extent.
The Investigator – 1859
The proposal for a manuscript magazine being produced in England was approved at the Fraternal Gathering in Nottingham in 1859. Brother Roberts commenced it in September 1859, entitling it The Investigator. It was hand written and the two copies were circulated to ecclesias in England and Scotland.
Twelve Lectures – (1862), later expanded into Christendom Astray
In October 1860, in Huddersfield, Brother Roberts gave his first series of public addresses. By December a second series of lectures was commenced.
“As the year drew towards its close, it was resolved that we should make a more systematic effort and that I should give a complete course of lectures in exhibition of the whole system of the truth. I accordingly drew out a programme of twelve lectures, to be delivered on twelve successive Sunday afternoons. Of this, I had a thousand copied printed as handbills and a hundred posters, and arranged for their distribution. It then occurred to me that it would be better to write and read the lectures than to attempt the extempore delivery from skeleton notes, as I was in the habit of doing
The first lecture was delivered December 1st, 1861 and the last, which was delivered on February 16th, 1862. There was close attention throughout, and some afternoons, questions were put at the close. There was not the same life in a read lecture as in one extemporised fresh from the heart. At the same time, there was this advantage: when the lectures were over, I had them in my possession in a written form.”
My Days and My Ways, page 109
At the request of some the first lecture was printed. The venture was sufficiently successful to print all twelve lectures, one every two weeks. Subsequently, they were printed as one volume.
In 1884 Brother Roberts supplemented the original twelve with additional material and republished it as Christendom Astray, which is still in print. It may well be that that this book has done more to convert people to the Truth than any other publication.