John Roberts was born in London in 1829, and arrived in Adelaide in 1849. He became a lay preacher with the Congregational church soon afterwards. Following studies with the Rev TQ Stow, he travelled to Encounter Bay and began taking services at Goolwa in 1853. This was a time of great revival amongst the Goolwa Methodists, and Roberts struggled to make his own church viable. In 1863 he left the district and returned to Adelaide. In 1865 Roberts moved to Gippsland where he spent 50 years as a Presbyterian minister. Roberts' diaries are full of detailed descriptions of the moral fibre of the many individuals he came across during his ministry in the early decades of European settlement in South Australia. No one escapes his censure, from Judge Charles Cooper, 'the wretched old man and his sister think of nothing but an increase of enjoyment; they have large parties more frequently than ever,' (15 November 1851) - to the wives of the riverboat captains at Goolwa, 'Afterwards saw Mrs T. Johnstone. Spoke pointedly to her. ... She wept as she spoke of her trials and how God had turned her mourning into joy.' (1 June 1860).