Francis Roberts was an English puritan clergyman, author and librarian.
Education
Born in Methley, near Leeds, Roberts was educated at Trinity College, Oxford between 1625 and 1632. He studied as a curate under John Burges in Sutton Coldfield, and by 1635 was established as the resident minister at Street Martin in the Bulletin Ring, the parish church of Birmingham, where he married in 1635 and where two of his children – Mary and Elizabeth – were baptised in 1637 and 1638.
Career
While in Birmingham he founded the first Birmingham Library, one of the first public libraries in England, and developed a reputation as a "famed lecturer". Roberts escaped, and was appointed minister of Street Augustine Watling Street in the City of London the same year. In 1650 Roberts was appointed rector of Wrington in Somerset, where he was to spend the remainder of his life.
Roberts was a notable author, writing both scholarly and popular works including Synopsis of Theology or Divinity (1645), Mysterium & medulla bibliorum, the Mysterie and Marrow of the Bible (1657), and Clavis bibliorum.
The Key of the Bible (1665) – written for "the help of the weakest capacity in the understanding of the whole Bible".