Alfred Roberts

Alfred Roberts (18 April 1892 – 10 February 1970) was an English grocer, preacher, and local politician. He served as alderman of Grantham from 1943 to 1952 and mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946. His second daughter, Margaret, was the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom. Early life 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), from a Ringstead family, and his mother was Ellen Smith (20 November 1857 – 1 May 1935), whose own mother, Catherine Sullivan, was born at Kenmare in Ireland. 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. It more than likely meant that other siblings perished through starvation or associated diseases. His grandparents possibly left Kenmare in 1849–51, and two million more came destitute to England. This and the family's hard times may have much to do with the reluctance to acknowledge his being part Irish to his daughters. Roberts's bad eyesight meant he could not enter the family trade of shoemaking. He left school at thirteen 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 a greengrocers; he had initially wanted to become a teacher. When the First World War broke out in 1914, Roberts, "a deeply patriotic man", applied to enlist in the British Army six times but was rejected because of his weak eyesight. Four years after moving to Grantham, Roberts met Beatrice Ethel Stephenson (24 August 1888 – 7 December 1960) through the Finkin Street Methodist Church, which he attended every Sunday. They married in Grantham on 28 May 1917. They had two daughters, both born in Grantham: Muriel Cullen (24 May 1921 – 3 December 2004) and Margaret Hilda (13 October 1925 – 8 April 2013). In 1919, they bought the grocery shop, and in 1923, Roberts opened a second shop.