John Roberts (31 March 1853 – 22 January 1949) was a Welsh Anglican priest, writer and missionary in the Bahamas and Wyoming. Roberts was born in 1853 at Llewerllyd, a farm near the village of Dyserth, which was then in Flintshire but was later placed in Denbighshire, in north Wales. Educated at Ruthin grammar school and St David's College, Lampeter (then affiliated with Oxford University), Roberts graduated in 1878. He was ordained a deacon by the Right Rev. George Augustus Selwyn in Lichfield Cathedral, and briefly served as a curate at Dawley Magna in Shropshire. However, Roberts yearned to become a missionary, possibly because of Selwyn's work in New Zealand. By year's end, Roberts had sailed to Nassau, Bahamas, where he was ordained a priest and made chaplain of St. Matthew Cathedral.