George Henry Roberts

The Right Honourable George Henry Roberts
Roberts in the mid 1900s
Minister for Labour
In office 1917–1919
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	John Hodge
Succeeded by	Robert Horne
Minister of Food Control
In office 1919–1920
Monarch	George V
Prime Minister	David Lloyd George
Preceded by	John Robert Clynes
Succeeded by	Charles McCurdy

George Henry Roberts PC (27 July 1868 – 25 April 1928) was a Labour Party politician who switched parties twice.

At the 1906 general election, he was elected as Member of Parliament (MP) for Norwich. He was a minister in the Lloyd George Coalition Government as Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade from 1916 to 1917, Minister of Labour from 1917 to 1919, and Minister of Food Control from 1919 to 1920. He was appointed as a Privy Counsellor in 1917.

Roberts stood in 1918 as a Coalition Labour candidate, opposed by the official Labour Party candidate. After leaving office in 1920, Roberts returned as a director to the firm he had left as works manager upon entering Parliament in 1906. He sat on the back-benches and as a Lloyd George Liberal retained his seat in the 1922 election but lost it as a Conservative in 1923. Roberts spent the rest of his life in the sugar beet industry.

References

• (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by George Roberts

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Samuel Hoare Louis John Tillett	Member of Parliament for Norwich 1906–1923 With: Louis John Tillett, to Jan 1910 Frederick Low, 1910–1915 Edward Hilton Young, from 1915	Succeeded by Dorothy Jewson Walter Robert Smith
Trade union offices
Preceded by William Brace and Ben Turner	Trades Union Congress representative to the American Federation of Labour 1911 With: James Crinion	Succeeded by James Andrew Seddon and Robert Smillie
Party political offices
Preceded by Ben Turner	Chair of the Labour Party 1912 – 1913	Succeeded by Tom Fox
Political offices
Preceded by John Hodge	Minister for Labour 1917–1919	Succeeded by Robert Horne
Preceded by John Robert Clynes	Minister of Food Control 1919–1920	Succeeded by Charles McCurdy