Alexander William Roberts

The Hon. Alexander William Roberts FRSE FRAS FRSSA (4 December 1857 – 21 January 1938) was a Scottish-born, South African teacher and an amateur astronomer. He was an expert on the stars of the southern hemisphere and did much mapping of these stars. He was affectionately known as Roberts of Lovedale.

Life

He was born in Farr, in the county of Sutherland, Scotland. His father, William Henry Roberts, moved to Admiralty House, on Newhaven Road in Leith, north of Edinburgh in his youth. Alexander was educated at St James Free Church School in Leith.

He trained as a teacher at Moray House in Edinburgh and at the Free Church College for Teachers also in Edinburgh. From 1877 until 1881 he served as an assistant teacher at the North School, in Wick, Scotland. In 1881 he returned to Edinburgh to take on an assistant role at the University of Edinburgh.

As a youth he developed an interest in astronomy, but, after applying for a post at the Edinburgh Observatory, was dissuaded from a career by Charles Piazzi Smyth, the Astronomer Royal for Scotland.

He emigrated to South Africa in 1883, where he took a teaching position at the Lovedale Missionary Institution, teaching the native South Africans. (He would later serve as acting Principal at the institute, then Principal at Lovedale Training School). In South Africa he met David Gill who re-inspired his love of astronomy.

In 1894 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1898 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. His proposers for the latter were Ralph Copeland, John McLaren, Lord McLaren, Peter Guthrie Tait and James Burgess. He was awarded an honorary doctorate Doctor of Science from the University of the Cape of Good Hope in 1899.

Family

In 1894 he was married to Elizabeth Dunnett. The couple had three children, two daughters and one son.