Talk:Frederick Roberts (British politician)

This article is rated Stub-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Politics of the United Kingdom

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Politics of the United Kingdom, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Politics of the United Kingdom on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Politics of the United KingdomWikipedia:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomTemplate:WikiProject Politics of the United KingdomPolitics of the United Kingdom articles

??? This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

More information:
/
	This article has been automatically rated by a bot or other tool as Stub-class because it uses a stub template. Please ensure the assessment is correct before removing the `\|auto=` parameter.

Biography: Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Low-importance).

Socialism

	Socialism portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Socialism, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of socialism on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SocialismWikipedia:WikiProject SocialismTemplate:WikiProject Socialismsocialism articles
???	This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

Name

I have just created this very stubby article on Frederick Roberts (politician), the Labour MP for West Bromwich 1918-31 and 1935-41. Rayment confirms that he was appointed as a privy councillor in January 1924, which implies that he was a minister in the first Labour government.

However, the only Roberts listed in Labour Government 1924 is "Frank Roberts", the Minister for Pensions. Same in Labour Government 1929–1931.

Was this man actually a minister? Was he known as Frank? --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:04, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I checked and the answer seems to be this. Frederick Owen Roberts was the MP, and was Minister of Pensions: see his 1929 appointment in the London Gazette (PDF). There was no Frank Roberts who was an MP from 1918 to 1949. Whether Frederick Roberts was known as 'Frank' is difficult to prove or disprove, but the likeliest explanation is that the compiler of the list of Ministers of Pensions made a mistake. He is referred to as "F.O. Roberts" in David Marquand's biography of Ramsay Macdonald, and in a brief biography in 'The British Labour Party' (Caxton Publishing Company, 1948) written by T.N. Shane. Note that the link to Frank Roberts in the list of Ministers goes to a disambig page which doesn't mention our Minister. Sam Blacketer 20:20, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Sam! That sounds fairly conclusive: if the London Gazette isn't an WP:RS reliable source on ministerial appointments, I don't know what is! I should have checked there myself.

BTW, I created the disambig page, when when I was hunting for other Frank Roberts. Should have mentioned that. --BrownHairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:28, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]