Joseph Robertson (historian)

Joseph Robertson (17 May 1810 – 13 December 1866) was a Scottish historian and record scholar.

He was born in Aberdeen, Scotland on 17 May 1810. His father, having tried his fortune in England, had returned to his native county, where he was first a small farmer, and afterwards a small shopkeeper, at Wolmanhill, Aberdeen. His mother was left a widow when Joseph was only seven, and he was educated at Udny parish school under Mr. Bisset, where James Outram was one of his comrades, and afterwards at the grammar school and Marischal College, Aberdeen, where he acquired a sound knowledge of Latin, but was more distinguished for physical than mental ability. John Hill Burton, the historian of Scotland, was his contemporary at school and university, and his lifelong friend.

On leaving Marischal College he was apprenticed to an advocate, as solicitors are called in Aberdeen, but soon showed a taste for literature, writing in the Aberdeen Magazine in 1831, and publishing under the name of John Brown, a Deeside coachman, in 1835, a Guide to Deeside, and in 1838 a guide to Aberdeen, called The Book of Bon Accord. In this book, though never completed, he first proved his exact knowledge of antiquities, and there is no better account of his native city. His Deliciæ Literariæ, published in the following year, showed a cultivated taste in literature, and the collection of the masterpieces in it helped to form his own style.

The foundation in 1839 of the Spalding Club, which was due to Robertson and his friend Dr. John Stuart, for the publication of historical records and rare memoirs of the north of Scotland, gave Robertson his opportunity; and although the club had many learned editors, none surpassed him in fulness and accuracy. His chief contribution was the Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, 1842, which formed the preface to Illustrations of the Topography and Antiquities of Aberdeen and Banff (vol. ii. 1847, vol. iii. 1858, vol. iv. 1869). This is the most complete series of records, public and private, which any county in Scotland has yet published. He also edited, for the same club, the Diary of General Patrick Gordon, a.d. 1635–1699, in 1862, and in 1841, along with Dr. Grub, Gordon of Rothiemay, History of Scots Affairs from 1637 to 1641.

He paid a short visit to Edinburgh in 1833 and engaged in historical work, but found it so unremunerative that he returned to Aberdeen, and supported himself chiefly by writing for the Aberdeen Courier, afterwards the Aberdeen Constitutional, which he edited for four years. In 1843 he went to Glasgow, where he edited the Glasgow Constitutional down to 1849, when he moved to Edinburgh as editor of the ‘Courant’ (1849–53).

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