Lloyd Roberts fonds

MG L5

This finding aid was funded by a grant under the
Canadian Council of Archives Control of Holdings Program

Archives & Special Collections
Harriet Irving Library
University of New Brunswick
P.O. Box 7500
Fredericton, NB E3B 5H5

March 1999



Table of Contents Series:
  1. Correspondence and business records
  2. Manuscripts, notebooks, newspaper clippings and other material
  3. Published material


Lloyd Roberts fonds [textual record, graphic material]. -- 1892-1949. -- 19 cm of textual records and 1 photograph : b&w; 7.5 x 4.7 cm

Biographical sketch: Poet, essayist and fiction writer William Harris Lloyd Roberts, second son of Mary Isabel Fenety and Charles G. D. Roberts, was born 31 October 1884 in Fredericton, New Brunswick. He spent his youth in Windsor, Nova Scotia, where he was educated by private tutors and at King's College School. In 1895 he moved with his family to Fredericton and attended public and high schools there.

Both Roberts's home life and professional career were unsettled. In 1897 his father left the family in Fredericton and took up residence in New York City in hopes of advancing his literary career. Lloyd Roberts visited his father in New York during the winter of 1899, and they spent part of that spring, summer and fall travelling in England and Europe. Again in April of 1907, Lloyd left New York to spend 3 months in Europe with his father visiting Naples, Rome, Florence, Milan, Paris and London. The following January he married Hope Balmain, who died prematurely in 1912. They had 1 daughter, Patricia Bliss (Henderson). His second marriage to Leila White of New York state, contracted in August 1914, ended in divorce. In 1943 he married Julia (Judy) Bristow, and they had 2 daughters, Thaia Bliss and Mary Carman.

Lloyd Roberts began his professional writing career in 1904, taking a post as assistant editor of Outing Magazine in New York. By 1911 he was working as a newspaper report for the News in Nelson, British Columbia. He later briefly held a similar post with the Ottawa Citizen. Between 1913 and 1920, he was employed as editor of immigration literature with the Canadian civil service, a post he resigned to devote more time to writing. His first book of verse, England Over Seas, appeared in 1914. During his career he published 2 more books of poetry, Along the Ottawa (1927) and I Sing of Life (1937) and several plays including "Mother Doneby", "Let's Pretend", and "The Bishop of St. Kitt's," as well as numerous articles and short stories. His 1923 book of essays, The Book of Roberts, focuses on the life of the Roberts family in Fredericton and Windsor.

In later life Roberts returned to journalism and the public service. A convert to Christian Science, between 1925 and 1939 he worked as a correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor. He left that position to act as a liaison and public relations officer for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (1939-1943). Lloyd Roberts died on 28 June1966.

Sources:
The Canadian Who's Who, 1955/57
Adams, John Coldwell, Sir Charles God Damn the life of Sir Charles G. D. Roberts, 1986



Scope and content: This fonds documents the literary and personal activities of Lloyd Roberts and sheds light on his personal relationships with his father and other family members. The fonds also documents Charles G. D. Roberts's literary career, highlighting his business dealings with publishers and agents.

This fonds consists of 3 series: 1. correspondence and business records, 2. manuscripts, notebooks, newspaper clippings and other material and 3. published material.

It contains personal letters to Lloyd or Charles G. D. Roberts and holograph and typescript copies of poems by them. It also includes their literary notebooks and copies of their published works, as well as Charles G. D. Roberts's royalty statements, correspondence from his publishers, his literary agreements and clippings about his literary activities. The fonds also includes a very few typescript, holograph or published copies of works by Bliss Carman, Theodore Goodridge Roberts, Leila Roberts and other writers.

Title based on contents of the fonds

Much of the material comprising this fonds was deposited in UNB's Bonar Law-Bennett Library by Lloyd Roberts beginning about 1956

In his published work, The Book of Roberts, Lloyd Roberts offers brief personal portraits of family members and reflects on his travels and his life in Fredericton, Windsor and Ottawa

Provincial Archives of New Brunswick houses MC703 When the Roberts lived in Fredericton : written for C.B.C. / by Lloyd Roberts


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Last Update: 2005/07/15