Early Academic Career
Roberts was appointed assistant lecturer and tutor in British history. His master's degree had involved original research into Australia's pioneering history, published in 1924 as History of Australian Land Settlement, 1788–1920. In 1925 he attended the first conference sponsored by the Institute of Pacific Relations, in Honolulu, where he presented a paper on Australia's role in a changing Pacific; this was published in 1927 under the title Population Problems in the Pacific.
He won a Harbison-Higinbotham research scholarship in 1929 from the University of London, where he studied at the London School of Economics. Here he was taught by Harold Laski and Lillian Knowles, and chose French colonial policy from the 1870s to the 1920s as his dissertation topic, carrying-out much of the archival work in Paris.
Roberts married Thelma Asche in Paddington, London in 1927, after which he returned to Melbourne as a research fellow at Melbourne University. In 1929 he successfully applied for the Challis chair of history at the University of Sydney succeeding Professor G. A. Wood.
Roberts' original research over eight years led to the publication of six books. In 1929 his is doctoral thesis became a two-volume History of French Colonial Policy (1870–1925). This was followed in 1932 by his text for schools, Modern British History, co-written with C. H. Currey, and in 1933 the History of Modern Europe. His 1935 book Australia and the Far East concerned international studies, after which he returned to Australian history with The Squatting Age in Australia, 1835–1847. His interpretations in these works became standard and the focus for debate in their fields.
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