Ernest Roberts

Who was Ernest Roberts?

Ernest Alfred Roberts was a Labor member of the Australian House of Representatives.

Roberts was born in London and educated in Guernsey. He became a sailor and then travelled to Queensland in 1886. He became a wharf labourer and union secretary in Port Pirie, South Australia and in 1892 he married Bridget Marie Collins.

In 1893, Roberts unsuccessfully stood for election to the South Australian House of Assembly for seat of Gladstone, but won it for Labor at the 1896 election. Although he initially opposed the sending of South Australian troops to the Second Boer War in 1899, in early 1900 he served as a lieutenant with the 4th Imperial Bushmen's Contingent there. He returned in July 1901, resigned his seat and helped organise the 2nd Battalion, Australian Commonwealth Horse. He returned to western Transvaal in mid-1902 as a captain. After his return to Australia, he edited the Labor Weekly Herald from 1904 to 1908.

Roberts won the 1908 Adelaide by-election.