Goronwy Roberts was elected Labour MP for Caernarvonshire in 1945, when he defeated the sitting Liberal MP Goronwy Owen, who had held the seat since 1923. Following boundary changes, he was elected to represent Caernarvon at the 1950 General Election, defeating the Liberal candidate by over 10,000 votes. He continued to represent the constituency until February 1974, when he lost his seat to Dafydd Wigley of Plaid Cymru. During the 1950s, Roberts was, together with Cledwyn Hughes and others, a stalwart of the Parliament for Wales campaign. In 1951, Plaid Cymru announced that the party would not oppose him at the General Election due to his support for the campaign. Eventually, he presented the final petition to Parliament, bearing more than 250,000 signatures, in May 1956. He was a member of the House of Commons Chairmen's Panel in 1963–64, and served in government as Minister of State at the Welsh Office from 1964–66, Minister of State at the Department for Education and Science from 1966–67, Minister of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs 1967–69, and Minister of State for Trade 1969–70. When Labour lost power in 1970, Roberts became an opposition spokesman on Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in 1968.
Roberts was a Member of the Court of Governors of the National Library of Wales, the National Museum of Wales and the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. He was Chairman of the Welsh publishing house, Hughes a'i fab, from 1955 to 1959. He was appointed a FRSA in 1968 and an Honorary Freeman of the Royal Borough of Caernarfon in 1972. In 1942 Roberts married Marian Ann Evans, daughter of David and Elizabeth Evans of Robertstown, Aberdare. They had two children: a daughter, Ann, and a son, Dafydd. Marion Goronwy-Roberts wrote a biography of Marion Phillips, the pioneering Labour campaigner for women's rights, and a number of books in Welsh, including the centenary lecture at the 1981 Welsh National Eisteddfod on the Welsh poet, scholar and politician, W. J. Gruffydd.
Assessment
Goronwy Roberts was a strong supporter of devolution and of Welsh culture but was also a fierce critic of what he regarded as the nationalistic excess of Plaid Cymru. His own roots were in the Labour tradition of the quarry working communities of his constituency. His Welsh was fluent and attractive. He was greatly troubled by his defeat at the General Election of 1974.
