John (Lee) Roberts, electrical engineer, was educated at St
Marks College, London, and received his professional training at the English Electrical
Construction Company. In 1896 he came to Durban as representative of that firm,
to supervise the installation of the first electric lighting plant in the city.
Upon the completion of this work, in October 1897, he was appointed as the
first electrical engineer of the borough, a post he held until his retirement
in December 1932. During these years the Durban Electricity Department expanded
from four lights in the centre of town to serving over 20 000 consumers.
Roberts visited continental Europe, Britain and the United
States in 1899 to study electric traction. Upon his return he advised the city
council to take over the existing private telephone and tramway companies in
the city and helped to adapt both to the city's requirements. In 1902 he
supervised the conversion of the trams to electric traction and around this
time supervised the installation of the municipal telephone system. He particularly
encouraged the domestic use of electricity by holding electrical exhibitions
and introducing the hire-purchase system for buying electrical appliances. In
1922 he proposed that Durban establish a municipal radio broadcasting station
and under his guidance it was inaugurated in 1924.
In 1924, in addition to his post as borough electrical
engineer, Roberts was appointed local manager of the Durban undertaking of the Electricity
Supply Commission, a position he held until February 1937. In 1936, he attended
the World Power Conference in the United States as an official South African
delegate with Dr H.J. van der Bijl, chairman of the Electricity Supply
Commission.
His lectures before the Durban Sanitary Association were
published under the title Electricity in
sanitation: Lectures delivered before the Durban Sanitary Association
(1902). Later he wrote a pamphlet on Electricity
as a by-product (with special reference to the sugar industry) (Durban,
1918, 11p). Two papers by him were published in the Transactions of the South African Institute of Electrical Engineers:
'Economics of electric transmission and feeder systems for urban electricity
supply' (1925, Vol. 16(9), pp. 117-135) and 'A waste heat power station' (1927,
Vol. 18(11), pp. 176-188). In 1932 he and H. Clark read a paper on the cost of
generating and distributing electricity at the annual congress of the South
African Association for the Advancement of Science.
Roberts was a member of the (British) Institution of
Electrical Engineers; a member of the South African Institute of Electrical
Engineers; and a foundation member of the Association of Municipal Electricity
Undertakings of South Africa, serving as its president during 1924-1926. In
1902 he married Kate Blundell, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.
