John Roberts (mayor)

Sir John Roberts CMG (October 1845 – 13 September 1934) founder and managing partner of Murray Roberts & Co was a leading New Zealand businessman and run-holder of the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the following century.

He brought his family woollen business to New Zealand initially by opening a Dunedin branch of Melbourne's (and Galashiels') Sanderson Murray following that in 1873 by floating a public company to buy Mosgiel Woollen Mill established two years earlier by Arthur J Burns. He was appointed first chairman of its owners at the age of 28 and remained chairman until he died. Founder A J Burns, a grand-nephew of the great poet, was also a director.

By this time Sanderson had withdrawn from the partnership and his place had been taken by young William Murray who was two years younger than Roberts. At the end of the 19th century Murray Roberts was New Zealand's second largest wool exporter and Sanderson Murray & Co in London was ranked as the third largest importer of wool in the United Kingdom.

Sir John also found time to serve his community as Mayor of Dunedin and earlier as a member of the Otago Provincial Council.

John Roberts was born in October 1845 in Selkirk Scotland the fourth son of a woollen mill owner, George Roberts, for many years provost of that town and his wife Agnes Fowler. He was educated at Cheltenham Grammar School, the Edinburgh Academy and at The Edinburgh Institution, Queen Street. On leaving school in 1862 Roberts entered his father's Selkirk firm, George Roberts & Co. Two years later he arrived in Melbourne where he was employed in station management and business in the Australian branch of Galashiels wool merchants John Sanderson & Co with which he had close family connections. In 1868 with four years experience in Australia he was sent to open a New Zealand branch in Dunedin.

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