Alfred Roberts (18 April 1892 – 10 February 1970) was a Conservative Party politician who served as Mayor of Grantham from 1945 to 1946. He was the father of Margaret Thatcher.
Biography[]
Alfred Roberts was born in Ringstead, Northamptonshire, England in 1892, and he could neither join his family's shoemaking business nor serve in the British Army during World War I due to poor eyesight. Roberts, who came to work as a grocer, was an old-fashioned liberal who strongly believed in individual responsibility and sound finance, and he became a Conservative Party supporter after claiming that the Liberal Party had embraced collectivism, and that the Conservatives had inherited the old liberal tradition. In 1927, he was elected to the Grantham, Lincolnshire town council, and he served as an alderman from 1943 to 1952 and Mayor from 1945 to 1946. In 1952, he was voted out as alderman by the first Labour Party majority on the council, ending his political career. His daughter Margaret Thatcher would go on to serve as Prime Minister.