User:Ausseagull/Sir James Roberts

Sir James Roberts (1848-1935) was a Yorkshire industrialist and businessman. He was born at Lane End, near Haworth, Yorkshire on 30 September, 1848. He was one of eighteen children of a weaver who became a tenant farmer.

James Roberts attended the local school at Haworth, where he learnt to read and write. As a boy he knew Charlotte Bronte and heard her father preach. He left school at twelve to become a part-time millworker in Oxenhope, and two years later was apprenticed at William Greenwood's mill there. At the age of eighteen he became manager of the mill, and in 1873 he started his own business as a top-maker.

In 1892 the well-known firm of Sir Titus Salt, Sons and Co Ltd went into voluntary liquidation and James Roberts was one of a consortium of local businessmen who purchased the concern. Within eight years he was the sole owner. The business prospered markedly under his management.

As part of his business activities James Roberts travelled extensively abroad. He went to Russia many times and learnt to speak Russian. But his business interests suffered badly as a result of the Revolution. This meant a visit to his bankers in London, where the bank official he met was TS Eliot. This is said to have given reference to the poet's reference in The Waste Land to "a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire". Nevertheless, when his family sold the business (which failed to prosper thereafter) in 1920, it was for the sum of £2,000,000, a remarkably large sum in those days.

The public life of James Roberts was also distinguished. In 1897 he became a member of Shipley Urban District Council, eventually becoming chairman of that council. He was also a member of the West Riding County Council and a Justice of the Peace. In 1909 he was created a baronet in the King's Birthday Honours. He was a keen advocate of free trade and was the first chairman of the West Riding Free Trade Federation. He endowed a leaving scholarship at Bingley Grammar School and the chairman of Russian at Leeds University. He also bought Haworth Parsonage which was opened to visitors in 1928. There is a Roberts Street in central Bradford and a Roberts Park in Saltaire.

Sir James retired to the south of England, whilst also maintaining a castle in Scotland. He died in 1935. He was buried in Fairlight in East Sussex.