Roberts, William Edward (poet and mountaineer, pseudonym Michael Roberts)
Dates
- Existence: 1902-1948. - 1948
Biography
William Edward Roberts, born 1902. From Bournemouth School he went to King's College, London, where he read chemistry (BSc, 1922). He then read mathematics at Trinity College, Cambridge (BA, 1925), where he took the name Michael through admiration for the Russian savant Mikhail Lomonosov.
From 1925 to 1941, Roberts was a schoolmaster; until 1931 and again from 1934 at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle-upon-Tyne; from 1931-1934 at the Mercers' School, London; and in summer 1934 at the King's School, Chester.
In 1935 he married Janet Adam Smith (1905-1999).
From September 1941 to March 1945 he worked for the European Service of the BBC. He then became principal of the College of St Mark and St John, Chelsea, and Anglican teacher-training college. He died of monocytic leukaemia in December 1948.
For further accounts, see 'A portrait of Michael Roberts', edited by T W Eason and R Hamilton (1949); 'Michael Roberts: selected poems and prose', edited by F Grubb (1980), the entry in the 'Oxford Dictionary of National Biography' (2004) and Andrew D Roberts. 'Michael Roberts and the BBC', in Wm Roger Louis, editor, 'Irrepressible adventures with Britannia' (IB Tauris, 2013).