[1] Roberts left school at thirteen to help support his family and is listed in the 1911 census as living as a boarder in Oundle, Northamptonshire, working as a grocer's assistant.

When the First World War broke out in 1914, Roberts, "a deeply patriotic man",[2]: 4  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.

[3]: 12  He soon became Chairman of the Finance and Rating Committee and, in 1943, was elected by the council as Alderman; he served as Mayor of Grantham from November 1945 to 1946, in which he presided over the town's victory celebrations.

In his inaugural speech, Roberts called for an extensive programme of expenditure to rebuild the roads, public transport, health and social services for children and to "build houses by the thousand".

[citation needed] On 26 November 1965, Roberts married again; his second wife was Cissie Miriam Hubbard (née Freeston), born 16 March 1896 in Long Bennington, Lincolnshire.

[10] John Campbell, the biographer of his daughter Margaret Thatcher, believes that these allegations were unsubstantiated and dismissed by people who knew him and that the character in Rotten Borough was a parody of another prominent councillor at the time.