Background
He was educated at Wigan grammar school, where his father Nehemiah Roby was master, and he himself became classical master at the grammar school of Bretherton, Lancashire.
He was educated at Wigan grammar school, where his father Nehemiah Roby was master, and he himself became classical master at the grammar school of Bretherton, Lancashire.
Roby owed a change of religious belief to the preaching of John Johnson. Beginning to preach in villages round Bretherton, Roby resigned his teaching position and entered Trevecca College. But only stayed six weeks.
After preaching at Worcester, Reading and Ashby-de-la-Zouch, he became Johnson"s assistant at Saint Paul"s Chapel, Wigan.
When Johnson moved on, in 1789, he became sole pastor, ordained in London on 20 September 1789. He began with an attendance of 150, which he raised substantially.
Benjamin Nightingale"s Lancashire Non-Conformity documents his work in founding new churches. On 27 June 1797 Roby went to Scotland on a mission with James Alexander Haldane.
On 3 December 1807 a new chapel was opened for him in Grosvenor Street, Manchester, where he ministered for the rest of his life.
Roby died on 11 January 1830, and was buried in his chapel-yard. His widow, Sarah Roby, died in 1835. The Roby schools at Manchester were erected in 1844 by way of memorial of him.
William Gordon Robinson wrote his biography as William Roby (1766–1830) and the Revival of Independency in the North (1954).