Few people believed in Memorial University and in the power of education more than Dr. Edward Roberts.

Lawyer, legislator, lieutenant governor and proud Memorial alumnus, he spent his life dedicated to the future of Newfoundland and Labrador and to promoting our institution as an engine of progress.

Born in St. John’s in 1940, Dr. Roberts grew up in a home where books and ideas mattered. His father was a prominent doctor, and his mother was a teacher. He completed his bachelor of arts degree in 1960 and his law degree in 1964, both at the University of Toronto, and then returned home just as our province was finding its feet after Confederation.

He decided to enter politics and became an aide to Premier Joseph Smallwood. Two years later, in 1966, he was elected to the Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly.

He held several ministerial portfolios and was the provincial minister of health when the first students entered Memorial’s medical program in 1969. He was instrumental in the early development of Memorial’s medical school. And in 1971, it was Dr. Roberts who announced that a new hospital and home for the Faculty of Medicine would be built at Memorial’s St. John’s campus.

In 1972, he became leader of the provincial Liberal Party and leader of the opposition. He stepped away from elective politics in 1985 but returned in 1992 to serve as attorney general and minister of justice in the cabinet of Premier Clyde Wells.

After leaving politics for a second time, Dr. Roberts dedicated himself to Memorial University, becoming one of our greatest supporters and ambassadors.

 

Memorial University awarded Edward Roberts an honorary degree in 2008. Photo from Memorial University Archives.

 

From 1997 to 2002, he was chair of the Board of Regents, and he never missed an opportunity to remind audiences of the university’s role in the province: “Memorial,” he said, “is where Newfoundland’s future takes shape.”

He also entrusted the university archives with his own political papers, which cover a tumultuous and ultimately transformative period in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador from 1963 to 1985.

A constant supporter of Memorial’s library, he funded the digitization of other historical archives and established the Honourable Dr. Edward Roberts Library Fund to support cataloguing and preservation work in Memorial’s Centre for Newfoundland Studies (CNS). The rare 1767 chart drawn by Captain James Cook that hangs in the CNS reading room was donated by Dr. Roberts.

He was appointed the province’s lieutenant governor in 2002. The following year, Memorial awarded him an honorary degree, recognizing his “profound commitment to the advancement of knowledge, culture and citizenship.”

Then in 2006, he finally became a Memorial alumnus by earning his master’s degree in a rare example of an honorary graduate returning to the classroom.

He was a member of the Order of Canada and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. And in 2009, he was our alumnus of the year.

Even after public life, Dr. Roberts remained close to Memorial. He attended events and celebrated the next generation of students with genuine pride.

He established the Katherine Roberts Memorial Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a student in the bachelor of nursing (collaborative) program. And he also created the Peter Cashin Prize, which is awarded every year to the best piece of scholarly work written on the history of the province’s political economy.

When he passed away in 2022, the province lost more than a statesman. It lost one of its clearest voices for education and for the role of the citizen in contemporary life.

His influence continues to run quietly through the halls of our university today. He taught us that knowledge and responsibility go hand in hand. He taught us that a commitment to place is best expressed through a commitment to its most important institutions. And he taught us that a statesman can still be a student, and that education is our most certain way forward.