Roberts, Richard (1803–41), sailor, was third son of Richard Roberts, JP and captain of the Passage Yeomanry, of Ardmore, Passage West, Co. Cork, and his second wife, Mary Anne Neville, daughter of Norcott d'Esterre of Killura and Castle Henry, Co. Clare. Educated by a private tutor, he joined the Royal Navy as a gentleman volunteer in his early teens and served on the West African station during the navy's campaign against the slave trade. In February 1829 he was senior mate aboard the tender Black Joke and, due to the incapacity of his commanding officer, Lieut. Henry Downes, commanded the ship in an encounter with a Spanish slave ship, the Almirante. After an action of over an hour, Roberts led a boarding party on to the Almirante and captured her, freeing 467 slaves. For his part in this action, he was promoted to lieutenant but, due to reductions in the size of the Royal Navy, was put on half-pay in 1830.
He returned to Passage West and sought employment with local packet-ship companies, holding several short-term commands on cross-channel steam packets. In 1836 he was working for the St George Steam Packet Company in command of the Victory and was awarded an engraved silver box for carrying a copy of the queen's speech to Cork in record time. There was then a considerable amount of debate about setting up a steamship route between the UK and America and, after a lecture on the subject at the British Association in London in 1836, James Beale, a Cork shipping owner, resolved to fund an attempt to cross the Atlantic by steamship. He chartered the Sirius from the St George Steam Packet Co. and Roberts was appointed commander. At the same time the British Queen and Brunel's Great Western were being built specifically for the purpose of making transatlantic crossings. An attempt at an Atlantic crossing by the undersized Sirius was considered a very risky endeavour.
On 28 March 1838 Roberts took the Sirius out of London dock and proceeded to Passage West, where he picked up passengers for New York before leaving on 4 April. The ship experienced some bad weather during the crossing and its engine required adjustment in mid Atlantic. On 22 April, the Sirius dropped anchor off the Battery, New York, and Roberts and his crew became instant celebrities, being received by the mayor and aldermen of the city while the harbour was thronged with people who wished to view the ship. News of the arrival of the Sirius became headline news in American newspapers and Roberts was later praised at a formal dinner. Ultimately he had succeeded in beating the best efforts of the British and American Steam Navigation Co.: the Great Western did not arrive in New York until 23 April 1838. On 1 May he began the journey home, thousands turning out to see the Sirius off while the Battery fired a seventeen-gun salute. After a rough crossing, he arrived in Falmouth on 18 May, and on his return to Cork was presented with a silver service, a memorial address, and the freedom of Cork city.
He subsequently commanded the British Queen on the transatlantic route before taking command of the President. From the beginning he had serious doubts about the seaworthiness of the latter, commenting to a friend: ‘It is too bad to be forced into a vessel to give her a character’ (Cork Hist. Soc. Jn., xi, no. 68 (1905), 174). In February 1841 he commanded the President in a crossing to New York, beginning his return journey in March. The ship was never seen again and it was later concluded that she had sunk in mid Atlantic during a storm, Roberts, his crew, and the passengers all being drowned. A memorial was erected to his memory in the churchyard in Passage West, on the four sides of which were depictions of the ships he had commanded: Black Joke, Sirius, British Queen, and President. His pioneering Atlantic crossing has not been forgotten, however, and on the 150th anniversary of the voyage (1988) a monument was unveiled in the Square in Passage West and there were a number of local events commemorating his voyage. Daphne D. C. Pochin Mould's Captain Roberts of the Sirius (1988) was published by the Sirius Commemoration Committee, while An Post issued a commemorative stamp.
He married (September 1837) Jane (d. 1882), daughter of William Johnson of Rockenham, Passage West. They had one son, Maj. Richard Roberts of the 9th Foot and Kerry militia, who later served as governor of Cork prison.