Leslie Moore, 19th/20th Centuries portrait of Frederick Sleigh Roberts, First Earl Roberts (1832–1914) Commander-in-chief of the British Army

Leslie Moore, 19th/20th Centuries

Portrait of Frederick Sleigh Roberts, first Earl Roberts (1832–1914) Commander-in-chief of the British Army

Signed/Inscribed:

Leslie Moore

Watercolour on ivory

7 x 5cm. (2.3/4 x 2 in.)

Roberts, Frederick Sleigh, first Earl Roberts (1832–1914), army officer, was born on 30 September 1832 at Cawnpore, India, the younger son of Sir Abraham Roberts (1784–1873), commanding the East India Company's Bengal European regiment, and his second wife, Isabella (d. 1882), widow of Major Hamilton Maxwell and daughter of Abraham Bunbury, of Kilfeacle, co. Tipperary; Roberts's family were Anglo-Irish on both sides. He was christened Sleigh after the garrison commander at Cawnpore (Major-General William Sleigh).

Abraham Roberts brought his family home to England in 1834 and, before returning to India, settled them at Clifton, the family home for the next forty years. Frederick went to Eton College in 1845 but stayed only a year before going to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in January 1847. He wanted to join the British army but his father, largely on grounds of expense, preferred him to enter the East India Company's service and after two years at Sandhurst he entered the company's military college at Addiscombe, Croydon, in February 1850. He passed out ninth of his class in November 1851, and was commissioned into the Bengal artillery on 12 December 1851. He landed at Calcutta on 1 April 1852, and was posted to a battery at Peshawar, where his father commanded the Peshawar division. Until Abraham Roberts went home at the end of 1853, Fred, as he was known in the family, served also as his aide-de-camp. He received the coveted Bengal horse artillery ‘jacket’ in 1854 and transferred to a horse artillery troop at Peshawar, his only unit command. In 1856 he was appointed to the quartermaster-general (India)'s department as acting deputy assistant quartermaster-general at Peshawar.

When news reached Peshawar of the mutinies at Meerut and Delhi on 10 and 11 May 1857 Roberts was appointed to the staff of the mobile column formed under Neville Bowles Chamberlain. In June 1857 he volunteered for the siege of Delhi. He served as a staff, as well as a battery, officer, and was incapacitated for a month by a spent bullet which hit his spine—the only wound of his career. When the city fell at the end of September 1857 he joined the staff of the force under the new commander-in-chief, Sir Colin Campbell, assembled for the second relief of Lucknow. At Khudaganj in January 1858 he won the Victoria Cross for saving the life of a loyal sepoy and capturing a rebel standard. He was present at the capture of Lucknow in March 1858, but his health was breaking down and in April 1858 he handed over his staff appointment to Garnet Wolseley and returned to England on leave. He had gained a reputation as a gallant and efficient officer.

During his leave Roberts met Nora Henrietta Bews (1838–1920), daughter of Captain John Bews, late of the 73rd regiment. They were married on 17 May 1859; their marriage was happy and supportive; they had six children, of whom three died in infancy. His wife was taller than Roberts, and a forceful woman. In later years when he held high command she apparently enjoyed power and influence over him. In India it was believed that officers could gain advancement through her, and Roberts and she were nicknamed Sir Bobs and Lady Jobs (Beckett, 478). The queen wrote in 1895 that Roberts was ‘ruled by his wife who is a terrible jobber … her notorious favouritism’ (ibid.). When in the South African War she accompanied Roberts at his headquarters despite the queen's objection, there was talk of ‘petticoat government’. Presumably the 1954 destruction by David James, Roberts's ‘official’ biographer, of the correspondence between Roberts and his wife was to conceal her role: letters