Background
William Randall Roberts was born at Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland. His parents are said to have been Randall and Mary (Bishop) Roberts. After receiving a limited schooling, he emigrated to New York in 1849.
congressman leader politician president of the Knights of St Patrick
William Randall Roberts was born at Mitchelstown, County Cork, Ireland. His parents are said to have been Randall and Mary (Bishop) Roberts. After receiving a limited schooling, he emigrated to New York in 1849.
After receiving a limited schooling, he emigrated to New York in 1849.
He worked as a dry-goods clerk until 1857, when he set up in the same business on his own account, only to be ruined in the panic of that year. He succeeded in restablishing himself, however, and his store on the Bowery later became so popular that in 1869 he was able to retire with the reputation of being a millionaire. During the Civil War he became prominent in the Irish societies of New York. In 1865 he was president of the Knights of St. Patrick. In 1863 he joined the Fenian Brotherhood, becoming president of its senate when the latter was organized in October 1865. He was a leader in the agitation against the president of the Brotherhood, John O'Mahony; and when in December an open quarrel occurred, the senate deposed O'Mahony and elected Roberts in his stead. O'Mahony and his followers continued their attempts to foment revolution in Ireland, while Roberts, on the other hand, with Gen. T. W. Sweeny as his "secretary of war, " set in motion plans for invading Canada. They hurried the project on because of their desire to appear the party of action, and in the first week of June 1866, concentrated several thousand men at various points along the border. Except for a temporary success obtained by John O'Neill, however, the scheme was a complete fiasco. The United States government, which so far had offered no opposition to the Fenian plans, now interfered; President Johnson issued a proclamation, and on June 7 Roberts and other leaders were arrested on charges of breech of the neutrality laws. Roberts, refusing to give bail, was soon released, and the government chose to nolle prosequi the charges before the congressional elections that autumn. In June 1867, Roberts went to Paris to meet representatives of the Brotherhood in the British Isles, to arrange for cooperation between their organization and his own; but the agreement then made does not seem to have been effectively implemented. At the end of 1867 he resigned from the presidency of the Brotherhood, believing mistakenly that his resignation would be followed by a reunion of his group with that formerly headed by O'Mahony. His Fenian record was a useful foundation for a political career in New York City; and in 1870 he was elected as a Democratic representative to the Forty-second Congress, and relected in 1872. He did not stand for relection in 1874. Among the causes which he particularly supported in the House were the protection of American citizens abroad (with special reference to the Fenians imprisoned in Canada) and opposition to repressive measures in the South. He made more than one vehement attack on British policy. In 1878 and 1879 he was a member of the New York board of aldermen, and president of the board in the former year. In the Democratic rout of 1879, running on the Tammany ticket, he failed of election for sheriff. Although he had been a faithful Tammany man, he was one of the group that seceded from Tammany Hall in 1881 to form the New York County Democracy. For supporting Grover Cleveland in his state and national campaigns, he was rewarded by appointment in 1885 as United States minister to Chile (1885 - 89). His tenure of the post was uneventful, and before its end he suffered a paralytic stroke, May 18, 1888.
Irish nationalist
Fenian Society member,
Member of the board of aldermen of New York City
He died at Bellevue Hospital, New York, in greatly reduced circumstances, survived by his wife, from whom he had been separated for some years, and by one son.