John Foulkes Roberts

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John Foulkes Roberts (1818–1902) was a Manchester civic leader. He served as Lord Mayor of Manchester from 1896 to 1897 and later acted as deputy mayor. A native of Anglesey, he was elected to the Manchester City Council in 1868 and became an alderman in 1885.

Roberts cared about Welsh education and helped fund the creation of Aberystwyth University College in 1872. He was a founding member and later senior vice-president of the college’s Court of Governors. The college started with no government support and faced criticism, but it survived largely thanks to its principal Thomas Charles Edwards and supporters Roberts and Hugh Owens.

Roberts died in Manchester in November 1902. A portrait of him by Thomas Edwin Mostyn, unveiled in 1898, hangs in Manchester Town Hall.