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- His father-in-law, President JN Boshof, created the post of Attorney-General in which he was appointed in February 1856. He was therefore the first Auditor General of the Republic of the Orange Free State, a position he held untill his death. In addition to this, he also held the posts of Treasurer-General and Postmaster-General.
He was married three times.
His first wife was Lucy De Kock and they had two children namely Isabella Louisa and Edward Roberts. Lucy died in 1853.
His second wife was Adriana Boshoff. She was the third daughter of President Boshoff of the Republic of the Orange Free State. They had five children.
His third wife was Clara Aletta Frederica Biel, widow of F Schirmer.
He is buried at the President Brand Cemetary, Bloemfontein. The date of his death on his gravestone is incorrectly given as 27/2/1868 as it actually is 28/2/1869.
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Roberts, Alfred Brooksbank (*Cape Town, 18.11.1821 - Bloemfontein, 26.2.1869), first government attorney of the Orange Free State was the son of the surgeon Edward Roberts and his wife, Louisa Biddulph, both 1820 British Settlers. His mother was a sister of the traveler J.B. Biddulph * and of T.J. Biddulph* who served as a magistrate of Winburg under the Orange River Sovereignty.
R. probably spent his youth in Cape Torn where his father died in 1830 and his mother later ran a small school. In 1837 he became a clerk with Merrington & Son, a firm of attorneys in Cape Town; in 1843, when he began to practice as a notary, he worked in Grahamstown and from 1845 to 1847 in Cradock. During 1847 he reached Natal (according to the family this was through an early connection with J.N. Boshof, * Registrar of Deeds and Master of the Supreme Court in Pietermaritzburg at the time), but this could not be verified. Here, at first, he acted as a notary but in 1848 was employed as a clerk at the Registrar's office where his name appeared until 1851; after this he was accepted as a partner in the firm Walker Buchanan & Roberts, attorneys, and also began to play a prominent part in legal circles and local affairs.
Boshof, who had in the meantime become R.'s farther-in-law was elected State President of the Orange Free State in August 1855, and R. shortly afterwards set up a legal practice in Bloemfontein. Boshof immediately introduced improvements to the legal system in the Free State. He created the pot of Attorney-General, and in February 1856 R. was appointed to this position, in addition to the posts of Treasurer-General and Postmaster-General, for which he received a salary of £350 per annum. At first he was permitted to supplement his salary through private practice, but in August 1860 he petitioned the Volksraad for honourable dismissal from these responsibilities because of the inadequate remuneration. H.A.L Hamelberg* was temporarily appointed in his place. In February 1862 the Bolksraad ratified R.'s provincial reappointment as Attorney-General, and he held this post until he died.
He experienced countless difficulties caused by the general state of disororderliness in the young republic, the inadequacy of existing legislation, and the lack of qualified legal practitioners and officials. One of the first lawsuits he had to handle was the case against the Englishman C.L. Cox,* who was accused of murdering his wife and children. Despite the claims of the English-speaking community in Bloemfontein that Cox was a British subject and entitled to a hearing before a Cape court R. acted correctly throughout and saw to it that justice was carried out in the Orange Free State by bringing Cox to trial before a Free State Court of Combined Magistrates, and later before the Executive Council as a Court of Appeal. R. was fully supported by William Porter, * Attorney-General of the Cape, whom he had known in Cape Town and who recognized the competence of the Free State courts. Van Rensburg (infra) later commented appreciatively on R.'s originality and his 'sifting, objective clarity' as Attorney-General.
Earlier on he had apparently also been a competent Auditor-General, but his contributions to the development of the Orange Free State were mostly effected behind the scenes, and are therefore difficult to determine with any degree of accuracy. Biographical articles published in the local press directly after he died were remarkably terse and non-committal and this creates the impression (perhaps unjustly) that he was not particularly popular or respected.
R. married the eighteen-year-old Lucea Margaretha Josephina de Kock on 26.4.1849, but she died a few years later, leaving him with a son and a daughter. In 1853 he married Adriana Petronella (1831-62), the daughter of State President Boshof, and had five more children. R. was survived by his third wife, Clara Aletta Frederica Biel, widow of F. Schirmer. Alfred Brooksbank Roberts (1854-1926), a son of his second marriage, later became magistrate at Fauresmith, Auditor-General of the Orange Free State Railways, secretary of the Free State council of war during the Second Anglo Boer War (1899-1902), and the first provincial secretary of the Transvaal after Union.
R. was buried in the President Brand cemetery, Bloemfontein. The date of death on his gravestone is incorrectly given as 27.2.1868. on his death notice it is given as 28.2.1869, but the obituaries in the press clearly state the date of death as 26.2.1869. there are photographs of R. in Malan (infra).
KAREL SCHOEMAN
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