Elizabeth Sarah (Lillie) Roberts (née Williamson, 1860–1928), artist, was born in Launceston, the daughter of Caleb Williamson, a successful merchant, and his wife, Elizabeth. She attended school in Launceston before moving to Melbourne, her father having gone into partnership in a department store on Elizabeth Street. Lillie studied at the National Gallery School in the early 1880s before a period spent travelling in Europe. She met artist Tom Roberts in 1886. She exhibited paintings with the Victorian Artist’s Society between 1888 and 1892; and appears to have started making frames during the 1890s, carving a frame for Roberts in 1894 as well as for other artists. She and Roberts married in Melbourne in April 1896 and then moved to Sydney, where their only child, Caleb, was born in 1898. In 1903, dispirited at the poor prospects and lack of patronage in Australia, Roberts took his family to London, where he worked on his painting of the opening of the Australian Parliament. But Roberts had difficulty attracting the commissions he was anticipating in London, and it is believed that it was only through Lillie's family funds that they managed financially. Lillie also contributed herself, between 1905 and 1908 training in woodcarving and gilding in London. As Helen Topliss states in her entry on Roberts in the ADB: 'Lillie became well-known for her handsome carved frames'. She received commissions from important clients and had examples of her work exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1908 and the Imperial Exhibition of 1909. They returned to Australia in 1923; Lillie died in 1928.
