Born on 24 January 1861 at Marseilles, son of W H Roberts, an officer in the Merchant Navy. He was educated at Dollar Academy, at Lausanne, at Middlesex Hospital, and at the Durham School of Medicine at Newcastle, where he graduated in 1885, having taken the Conjoint qualification the year before. He entered the Indian Medical Service as a surgeon on 31 March 1888, and saw active service at Chin Lushai on the North-East frontier in 1889-90, receiving the medal with clasp, on the North-West frontier at Hunza Nagar in 1891 and as principal medical officer at the capture of Nilt Fort in 1892, for which he was mentioned in despatches and received a second clasp to his frontier medal. He was then made agency surgeon at Gilgit, and spent the rest of his service with distinction in the political department. In 1900 he was residency surgeon at Gwalior and in 1901-12 residency surgeon at Indore, holding with it from 1906 the post of administrative medical officer for Central India. He retired from this post, in which he had much improved hospital standards in his area, in 1916, when he was made civil surgeon of Simla West. He had been vice-president of the section of tropical medicine at the London meeting of the British Medical Association in 1910. He was promoted major in the IMS, 31 March 1900, lieutenant-colonel on 31 March 1908, created CIE on 11 December 1911, and a Knight Bachelor on 3 June 1913, and on 31 December 1915 he was placed on the selected list for promotion. He saw active service again during the war in Mesopotamia, and retired on 9 July 1919. After retirement he lived for a time at St Fillans, Perthshire, but went back to India, serving first in the State Cabinet of Jaipur and from 1932 on the Council of State of Dewas, living at Sugar Mahal, Dewas, Central India. He received the Kaisar-i-Hind Order, first class, in 1936. He died at Srinagar on 30 May 1941, aged 80.