Susan Taylor (Bangor

1933-34 Driver's License photo. PRONI: D3838/1/1/20

The one thing I feel people should know about Roberta was that she had strong socialist beliefs.

I believe that Roberta Hewitt was a remarkable woman. She was very involved in many local causes as, I suppose, many middle and upper class women of the day would have been. However, Roberta came from a fairly working class family and had to leave school early in order to help support her family. She was active in the Belfast Peace League and believed in equality for all.

I feel that she would have to have been a very strong woman to be able to voice her views and attitudes in the times she did. The quote from Roberta that I have chosen comes from papers deposited at PRONI after John Hewitt’s death:

“I am a Socialist because I believe in equality of opportunity for all human beings regardless of birth, creed or colour. I feel any exploitation of man by man, class by class or nation by nation to be morally wrong. My ideas came from my home background, which was Christian Socialist, and later working in nursery schools in industrial areas in the 1930s. I was shocked by the consequences of insecurity, unemployment and illness.”64

64 Newspaper clipping (John Hewitt Society)