Sydney Castle Roberts

Sir Sydney Castle Roberts (3 April 1887 – 21 July 1966) was a British author, publisher and university administrator. He was a well-known and popular figure around Cambridge throughout his life,^[1] and was recognised as a publisher of skill and distinction.^[2]^[3]

Early years

Roberts was born in Birkenhead, the son of Frank Roberts, a civil engineer. He attended Brighton College and Pembroke College, Cambridge.^[4] During World War I, he served as a lieutenant in the Suffolk Regiment and was wounded in the Third Battle of Ypres.^[5]

Career

He was Secretary of Cambridge University Press from 1922 to 1948, Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge from 1948 to 1958, Vice-Chancellor of University of Cambridge from 1949 to 1951, and Chairman of the British Film Institute from 1952 to 1956. He was an author, publisher and biographer and a noted Sherlockian, being president^[6] of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London. According to Jon Lellenberg, Roberts is responsible for the popularisation of the Sherlockian game of criticism.^[7]

In 1954 he held the Sandars Readership in Bibliography and his topic was "The evolution of Cambridge publishing.^[8]

He was knighted in 1958.^[9]

The National Portrait Gallery holds three photographic portraits of Roberts by Elliott & Fry, made in 1949.^[10]

Personal life

He married, firstly, Irene Wallis (died 1932), daughter of Arnold Joseph Wallis, Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. They had two daughters and a son. After her death, in 1938, he married a second time to Marjorie Dykes, widow of Dr Meredith Blake Robson Swann. Roberts was stepfather to Hugh Swann,^[11] cabinet maker to Queen Elizabeth II, and of Michael Swann, former chairman of the BBC.

He died in Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.^[3]

Publications

A Picture Book of British History; Cambridge University Press, 1914
The Story of Doctor Johnson: being an introduction to Boswell's Life; Cambridge University Press, 1919
A History of the Cambridge University Press 1521–1921; Cambridge University Press, 1921
Doctor Johnson In Cambridge: Essays In Boswellian Imitation; Putnam, 1922
Lord Macaulay: The Pre-eminent Victorian; Oxford University Press, 1927
The charm of Cambridge; A & C Black, 1927
An Eighteenth-century Gentleman and other essays; Cambridge University Press, 1930
Doctor Watson: Prolegomena to the study of a biographical problem; Faber & Faber, 1931
Introduction to Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 1934
Pembroke College, Cambridge: a short history; Cambridge University Press, 1936
Zuleika in Cambridge; Heffer & Sons, 1941
Springs Of Hellas And Other Essays, with Memoir by S.C. Roberts, Cambridge University Press, 1945
British Universities (Britain in Pictures); Collins, 1947
The Sir Walter Scott Lectures for 1948; Oliver and Boyd, 1948
Sherlock Holmes: Selected Stories: with an introduction by S C Roberts, Oxford University Press, 1951
Holmes & Watson: A Miscellany (Otto Penzler's Sherlock Holmes Library); Oxford University Press, 1953
Samuel Johnson; Longmans, 1954
The Evolution of Cambridge Publishing; Cambridge University Press, 1956
Doctor Johnson, and others; Cambridge University Press, 1958
Edwardian Retrospect; UK English Association, 1963
Adventures with Authors; Cambridge University Press, 1966
The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Megatherium Thefts, Penguin Books 1985

References

^ Zuleika in Cambridge, Oleander Press; 2009.
^ Adventures with Authors, Cambridge University Press; 2010.
^ ^a ^b "Obituary: Sir S. Roberts". The Times. 22 July 1966. p. 14.
^ Heritage Press Sandglass Companion Book: 1960–1983 by Michael C. Bussacco, p. 214, at Google Books
^ War Record of the Cambridge University Press, 1914–1919. Cambridge University Press. 1920. transcribed in "Roberts S C 2nd Lt". ww1photos.com.
^ Letter from Christopher Morley to Sydney Castle Roberts, president of the Sherlock Holmes Society of London
^ "The Ronald Knox Myth"
^ " Barker, Nicolas. 1966. "S.C." The Book Collector 15 (no 4) Winter: 419-422.
^ Supplement to the London Gazette, 1 January 1958, p. 2.
^ National Portrait Gallery.Sir Sydney Castle Roberts
^ Tim Swann, The Times^{[dead link‍]}, 21 July 2007.

External links

Works by Sydney Castle Roberts at Project Gutenberg

Academic offices
Preceded by Montagu Sherard Dawes Butler	Master of Pembroke College, Cambridge 1948–1958	Succeeded by W. V. D. Hodge
Preceded by Charles E. Raven	Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge 1949–1951	Succeeded by Lionel Ernest Howard Whitby