Biography

John Roberts was a merchant and pastoralist who became one of Otago’s wealthiest and most influential men. He was born in Selkirk, the son of a woollen manufacturer.

He arrived in Dunedin in 1868 to manage a fellmongery. Within a month of his arrival, a new partnership, Murray, Roberts & Co., had been formed to operate the fellmongery, buy and sell wool, and to purchase pastoral property. By 1878 the firm had established branches in Wellington, Napier, and Gisborne and by 1900 it was New Zealand’s second largest wool exporter.

In 1910 the firm was reconstituted as a limited liability company with Roberts as its chairman and managing director. Roberts was also involved in running several pastoral properties (including Lauder, Gladbrook, and Patearoa). He promoted many Dunedin companies, including the Mosgiel Woollen Company and the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, and served as a director on many others. He served on a number of local authorities and on the 1900 commission on federation with Australia. He was made CMG in 1891 and KCMG in 1920.

His wife, Louisa Jane, was a daughter of a surveyor Charles Kettle. Roberts was a devoted member of Knox Church, Louisa of St Pauls – and so their nine children were baptised alterately Presbyterian and Anglican. When Roberts died in 1934, their home – Littlebourne – was bequeathed to Dunedin City.