Wilfrid Roberts

Wilfrid Hubert Wace Roberts (28 August 1900 – 26 May 1991) was a radical British Liberal Party politician who later joined the Labour Party. Personal life Roberts was born to Charles Henry Roberts, who became Liberal MP for Lincoln, and Lady Cecilia Maude Roberts, daughter of the 9th Earl of Carlisle; the artist Winifred Nicholson was his elder sister. He was educated at Gresham's School, Holt, Norfolk, and Balliol College, Oxford. A farmer, Roberts in 1934 and 1935 broadcast two series of talks, Living in Cumberland, on the BBC Home Service. He commissioned Leslie Martin to work on Banks House, near Brampton, Cumberland, in 1937. From September 1943 A. J. Ayer was a lodger in his flat near the House of Commons. Ayer had not previously known Roberts, and described him as "very tall, unmistakably English, quiet, with an undercurrent of strong feeling, cultivated and philanthropic." Roberts was also the owner of the Carlisle Journal newspaper, which ceased publication in 1969. He served as a Justice of the peace.