Roebuck

Roebuck, JOHN ARTHUR, English politician, was born at Madras in December 1802, but passed his youth in Canada. Coming to England in 1824, he was in 1831 called to the bar at the Inner Temple, and in 1832 elected as a Radical reformer for Bath to the House of Commons. He represented Sheffield from 1849 to 1868, and again from 1874 till his death on 30th November 1879. The vigorous nature of his political warfare earned him the popular nickname of 'Tear 'em.' His greatest political triumph was the moving of a motion for inquiring into the condition of the army before Sebastopol in January 1855, which he carried by a large majority, causing the fall of the administration of the Earl of Aberdeen. He was appointed chairman of the committee which conducted the inquiry moved for. During the civil war in America he displayed a strong leaning towards the Confederates. He supported the Earl of Beaconsfield's policy during the Eastern crisis in 1877-78, and in 1879 was made a member of the Privy-council. He was the author of a work on the Colonies of England (1849), and The Whig Ministry of 1830 (1852). See his Life and Letters by Leader (1897).