Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Roberts, Robert Davies
ROBERTS, ROBERT DAVIES (1851–1911), educational administrator, born at Aberystwyth on 5 March 1851, was eldest son of Richard Roberts, timber merchant and shipowner of that town. His early training was sternly Calvinistic, but he quickly developed, with a studious temper, versatile human interests and a spirit of adventure. From a private school at Shrewsbury he proceeded to the Liverpool Institute, and thence to University College, London. Here he distinguished himself in geology; he graduated B.Sc. in the University of London with first-class honours and scholarship in that subject in 1870. In 1871 he entered Cambridge University as foundation scholar of Clare College, graduating B.A. in 1875 as second (bracketed) in the first class of the natural science tripos. He proceeded M.A. at Cambridge and D.Sc. at London in 1878; and was from 1884 to 1890 fellow of Clare College. He became fellow of University College, London, in 1888.
Meanwhile Roberts was lecturer in chemistry at University College, Aberystwyth, during 1877, and in 1884 was appointed university lecturer in geology at Cambridge. In geological study, especially on its palaeontological side, Roberts showed originality and imaginative powers. His 'Earth's History: an Introduction to Modern Geology' (1893) was well received both at home and in the United States. But Roberts was diverted from a pursuit in which he promised to achieve distinction by an ambition to organise and develop higher education among the classes that were at that time not touched by the universities. In 1881 he had become assistant and organising secretary to the syndicate at Cambridge which had been formed in 1873 to control the 'local lectures' or 'university extension' work. He was here engaged in association with Professor James Stuart and Professor G. F. Browne, afterwards bishop of Bristol. From 1885 to 1904 he was secretary to the London Society for the Extension of University Teaching, which, in the absence of a teaching university in London, had been founded as an independent organisation to direct the work in the metropolitan area. In 1891 he published his 'Eighteen Years of University Extension,' which contains an admirable account of the movement down to that date. In 1894 he returned to Cambridge to take full charge of the work under the Cambridge syndicate; and eight years later he became the first registrar of the Extension Board in the recently reconstituted University of London. This post he held till his death. The university extension movement owed much to Roberts's long service of more than thirty years. He sought to establish and maintain a high standard of 'extension' lecture, encouraging among the local committees continuous courses of study (often extending over three years). Devoted to Wales, he actively interested himself in the affairs of the principality. In the new Welsh University he served as junior deputy chancellor (1903-5) and as chairman (1910-11) of the executive committee of the court, on which he sat as one of the representatives of the college of his native town. He was J.P. for Cardiganshire, and high sheriff of that county (1902-3). To qualify himself for such public work he had become a student of the Middle Temple, and, though he was not called to the bar, he made a considerable study of law.
Long a lecturer for the Gilchrist Educational Trust, he acted as its secretary from 1899 till his death, bringing the organisation to a high state of efficiency and inaugurating valuable developments.
Roberts, who held many minor educational offices, showed exceptional skill and tact as an organiser, inspired others with his own enthusiasm, perseverance, and breadth of outlook, and devoted himself unsparingly to the improvement of the educational opportunities of all classes. While he was a fervent liberal in general politics, his wide sympathy made him equally at home among the Northumbrian miners and in Cambridge common-rooms.
In 1911 he was appointed secretary of the Congress of the Universities of the Empire which the University of London, with the co-operation of the other British universities, organised for the summer of 1912. In June 1911 he attended a preliminary conference of Canadian universities at Montreal, and was making active preparation at home when he suddenly died of calcification of the coronary arteries at his house at Kensington on 14 Nov. 1911. His body was cremated at Golder's Green, and was subsequently buried with public honours at Aberystwyth. In his memory two scholarships for the encouragement of university extension work were founded by public subscription, the administration of the fund being undertaken by the Gilchrist trustees.
Roberts married in 1888 Mary, eldest daughter of Philip S. King of Brighton. He left no children, and by his will he bequeathed the intimate residue of his estate to Aberystwyth College to form the nucleus of a fund which should provide for its professors periodic terms of release from their duties.
[The University Extension Bulletin of the Oxford, Cambridge, and London Work — Dr. R. D. Roberts memorial number, January 1912 (with photograph); University records; private information; personal knowledge.]