Joseph Clinton Robertson (c.1787–1852), pseudonym Sholto Percy, was a Scottish
patent agent
A patent attorney is an attorney who has the specialized qualifications necessary for representing clients in obtaining patents and acting in all matters and procedures relating to patent law and practice, such as filing patent applications and op ...
, writer and periodical editor. He was a
political radical prominent in the early days of the working-class press in London, and in the debates within the
Mechanics Institute movement.
Early life
He was born about 1787, the son of Rev. Joseph Robertson and Isobel Mathieson of
Stewarton
Stewarton ( sco, Stewartoun,
gd, Baile nan Stiùbhar ...
, Scotland. Rev. Joseph Robertson was Minister of Leith Wynd Chapel, Edinburgh, Scotland, but banished from Scotland for performing illegal marriages.
''The Mechanics' Magazine''
Robertson founded ''The Mechanics' Magazine'' in 1823, and edited and largely wrote it until the year of his death. It was a low-priced scientific weekly, and the first publication of its kind.
To begin with he was in close alliance with
Thomas Hodgskin
Thomas Hodgskin (12 December 1787 – 21 August 1869) was an English socialist writer on political economy, critic of capitalism and defender of free trade and early trade unions. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the term ''socialist ...
: they had met in Edinburgh.
It took advantage of a
stamp tax exemption for technical weeklies not dealing in news. Robertson also devised a way of generating cheap content by an early
crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing involves a large group of dispersed participants contributing or producing goods or services—including ideas, votes, micro-tasks, and finances—for payment or as volunteers. Contemporary crowdsourcing often involves digita ...
technique: letters to the editor were used without payment in continuing threads.
[Palmer, p. 433.]
In the ''Mechanics Magazine'' Robertson first proposed the
London Mechanics' Institution
, mottoeng = Advice comes over nightTranslation used by Birkbeck.
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £4.3 m (2014)
, budget = £109 ...
. The idea was shortly taken out of his hands and those of Hodgskin, by a group around
George Birkbeck
George Birkbeck Royal Society of London, FRS (; 10 January 1776 – 1 December 1841) was a British physician, academic, philanthropist, pioneer in adult education and a professor of natural philosophy at the University of Strathclyde, Andersonia ...
. Robertson became a long term critic of the Institution.
Robertson's publishers John Knight and Henry Lacey attempted in 1826 to remove him from the editorship of the ''Magazine'' on the pretext of his quarrel with Birkbeck over the Institution; but Robertson had recourse to the law and his ownership of the title. In fact Robertson had been fraudulently passing
letters of credit
A letter of credit (LC), also known as a documentary credit or bankers commercial credit, or letter of undertaking (LoU), is a payment mechanism used in international trade to provide an economic guarantee from a creditworthy bank to an exp ...
, claiming to a partner of "Knight, Lacey & Robertson", and successfully blackmailed his publishers, whose other publication the ''Pulpit'' had an
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide Interdenominationalism, interdenominational movement within Protestantism, Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being "bor ...
readership, by threats to their reputation. Knight & Lacey became bankrupt that year, and in a complex series of events the ''Mechanics Magazine'' was published dually for a period, two versions of the same title being produced weekly. Lacey left for the US, and Henry Kelly was brought in by Knight as a new partner. The Bankruptcy Court dealt with the matter by requiring Robertson to work on as editor, but upheld his claim to the title. By 1829, with just one more dual issue, the legal dust had settled.
Railway promotion and journalism
The ''Mechanics' Magazine'' covered railway inventions increasingly as the 1820s wore on, and by the end of the decade had become a partisan of the railroad lobby who were arguing against the
steam carriage
Steam is a substance containing water in the gas phase, and sometimes also an aerosol of liquid water droplets, or air. This may occur due to evaporation or due to boiling, where heat is applied until water reaches the enthalpy of vaporization. ...
, which ran on the road. Drawn into the railway world, Robertson conducted the defence for
John Braithwaite and
John Ericsson
John Ericsson (born Johan Ericsson; July 31, 1803 – March 8, 1889) was a Swedish-American inventor. He was active in England and the United States.
Ericsson collaborated on the design of the railroad steam locomotive ''Novelty'', which com ...
in their patent case, on boilers, brought by
Lord Cochrane and
Alexander Galloway
Lieutenant-General Sir Alexander Galloway, (3 November 1895 – 28 January 1977) was a senior British Army officer. During the Second World War, he was particularly highly regarded as a staff officer and, as such, had an influential role in the ...
. Buoyed by the experience, he took up patents as a further profession.
In the 1830s Robertson was a railway company promoter, initially working in 1833–4 for the
London & Greenwich Railway
The London and Greenwich Railway (L&GR) was opened in London between 1836 and 1838. It was the first steam railway in the capital, the first to be built specifically for passengers, and the first entirely elevated railway.
Origins
The idea for ...
with
George Landmann
Colonel George Thomas Landmann (1779 – 27 August 1854) was an English military and civil engineer. He served with the Royal Engineers in Canada, Gibraltar, Portugal, Spain and Ireland. Following his retirement from the army, he worked as ...
and
George Walter
Sir George Herbert Walter, KNH KNH or knh may refer to:
* Kamla Nehru Hospital, a hospital located in Gandhi Medical College campus, Madhya Pradesh, India
* Kenyatta National Hospital, the oldest hospital in Kenya
* KNH, the IATA code for Kinmen ...
. They also employed
John Herapath
John Herapath (30 May 1790 – 24 February 1868) was an English physicist who gave a partial account of the kinetic theory of gases in 1820 though it was neglected by the scientific community at the time. He was the cousin of William Herapath, t ...
, a contributor to the ''Mechanics' Magazine'', as an engineer. The subscription list was padded, and, Herapath later alleged, Robertson was responsible. Walter founded the ''
Railway Magazine
''The Railway Magazine'' is a monthly United Kingdom, British railway magazine, aimed at the Railfan, railway enthusiast market, that has been published in London since July 1897. it was, for three years running, the railway magazine with the ...
'', having seen the potential in the ''Mechanics' Magazine'' and its railway promotion; he brought in
John Yonge Akerman
John Yonge Akerman (1806–1873) was an English antiquarian specializing mainly in numismatics. He also wrote under the pseudonym Paul Pindar.
Life
Akerman was born in London on 12 June 1806. In early life he became secretary to William Cobbett ...
as its editor.
[Palmer, p. 447.]
From 1834 Robertson was working with Braithwaite promoting the
Eastern Counties Railway
The Eastern Counties Railway (ECR) was an English Rail transport, railway company incorporated in 1836 intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then extend to Norwich and Great Yarmouth, Yarmouth.
Construction began in 1837 on t ...
. He had married Sophia Brooman, related to the
Cobbold family
The Cobbold family is a prominent family that flourished in Ipswich since the eighteenth century. They first became prominent for their involvement in the brewing industry, but subsequently became involved in other areas of trade, banking politics ...
of
Ipswich
Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line r ...
, and the Cobbolds came in strongly to bring a railway to their part of
East Anglia
East Anglia is an area in the East of England, often defined as including the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk and Cambridgeshire. The name derives from the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of the East Angles, a people whose name originated in Anglia, in ...
.
Charles Blacker Vignoles
Charles Blacker Vignoles (31 May 1793 – 17 November 1875) was an influential British railway engineer, and eponym of the Vignoles rail.
Early life
He was born at Woodbrook, County Wexford, Ireland in May 1793 the son of Capt. Ch ...
as consultant engineer gave the project credibility. Matters went downhill, however, after Robertson wrote an expansive prospectus in 1834. The land deals were slow and at high premiums, with
Lord Petre presenting a particular obstacle. Herapath was brought into the company, did not fit in well, and in October 1835 quarrelled spectacularly with Robertson, who exacerbated the position with Lord Petre on what appeared to be a grudge. The required Act of Parliament of 1836 nearly missed its chance.
Herapath then acquired the ''Railway Magazine'' from Walter, and attacked Robertson in it; Robertson took legal action against Herapath for libel, via his publisher
James Wyld
James Wyld (1812–1887) was a British geographer and map-seller, best known for Wyld's Great Globe.
He was the eldest son of James Wyld the Elder (1790–1836) and Eliza (née Legg). In 1838, he married Anne, the daughter of John Hester, and ...
.
[Palmer, p. 451.] The founding of the ''
Railway Times
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
'' in 1837 by Braithwaite and Robertson, who began as editor, was self-defence. Robertson was undermined as Secretary in 1839, as a group based in Liverpool gained control over the company, defeating his supporters the Cobbolds. The land deal with Lord Petre hit legal obstacles in 1839, and Robertson resigned from the company on 26 February of that year. He was also caught up in a financial scandal involving his brother Thomas Duncan Robertson.
Robertson ran the ''Mining, Railway, and Steam Navigation Gazette'' of the late 1830s, in parallel with his two other publications, as covert moonlighting.
His editorship of the ''Railway Times'' came to an end in 1844, in a row with the owners over the highly critical anonymous contributor "Veritas Vincit", whose identity is not known;
Peter Lecount
Lieutenant Peter Lecount RN FRAS CE (25 May 1794 - 1852) was a naval officer and a civil engineer with a strong interest in railways.
He joined the navy in 1809 and saw active service until going on half-pay in 1827.
He was made a Fellow of the ...
or Robertson himself have been suggested as candidates, but the most likely was the unrelated contributor John Robertson
MA. Some of the offending material appeared in the book ''Railway Locomotive Management, in a Series of Letters'' (1847) under the same pseudonym.
Death
![Robertson Patent Solicitors ad](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/88/Robertson_Patent_Solicitors_ad.png)
Robertson was a patent agent in
Fleet Street
Fleet Street is a major street mostly in the City of London. It runs west to east from Temple Bar at the boundary with the City of Westminster to Ludgate Circus at the site of the London Wall and the River Fleet from which the street was na ...
, where his firm carried on until 1892 as Robertson & Brooman.
He died at
Brompton on 22 September 1852 and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.
The London Mechanics' Institution
Reading about Birkbeck's initial (1821) Mechanics' Institute in the ''
Glasgow Free Press
Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...
'', Robertson early in the life of the ''Mechanics' Magazine'' put forward the idea that London should have something similar.
[Kelly, p. 77.] In initial discussions he was conciliatory about differences between Glasgow, where the Institute had the
Andersonian University
The University of Strathclyde ( gd, Oilthigh Shrath Chluaidh) is a public research university located in Glasgow, Scotland. Founded in 1796 as the Andersonian Institute, it is Glasgow's second-oldest university, having received its royal c ...
to support it, and London, which would need a free-standing Institute. But on 22 November 1823 he and Hodgskin made a matter of principle of the point that accepting outside subscriptions to support the Institute would diminish the autonomy of the mechanics for which it was intended. Backed by Robert McWilliam, they lost the debate to Birkbeck and others including
Francis Place
Francis Place (3 November 1771 in London – 1 January 1854 in London) was an English social reformer.
Early life
He was an illegitimate son of Simon Place and Mary Gray. His father was originally a journeyman baker. He then became a Marshalse ...
,
John Martineau
John Martineau the younger (1789 – 6 January 1832) was an English sugar refiner and engineer, best known for his involvement in the firm Taylor & Martineau.
Life
He was the third son of John Martineau, the elder, of Stamford Hill. Charles Har ...
and
Richard Taylor.
Robertson and Hodgskin conceded defeat by not contesting the vice-president places in the election of 15 December that set up the Institution, though McWilliam took one place. Robertson's reputation was damaged when subscription money was unaccounted for in November 1824, with the radical James Flather most deeply implicated. At the end of 1824, as the Institution's foundation stone was laid, Hodgskin was distancing himself from Robertson and becoming reconciled to Birkbeck.
The breach was never healed, with Robertson attacking Birkbeck in print in 1835 as having the main responsibility for the "ruined" Institution. He also took aim at the
Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge
The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was founded in London in 1826, mainly at the instigation of Whig MP Henry Brougham, with the object of publishing information to people who were unable to obtain formal teaching or who pr ...
, which Birkbeck had scruples about joining.
Patent reform
Robertson used the pages of the ''Mechanics Magazine'' to campaign for
intellectual property law
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
reform. Starting in 1826, he tried to get a meeting on the topic at the London Mechanics' Institution, which flopped. In 1829 a parliamentary committee on patent reform was set up, after
Thomas Barrett Lennard had pushed for an enquiry: Robertson lowered expectations in advance, and was partly justified by a lacklustre and scanty representation of manufacturing interests, with
John Farey Jr.
John Farey Jr. (20 March 1791 – 17 July 1851) was an English mechanical engineering, consulting engineer and patent agent, known for his pioneering contributions in the field of mechanical engineering.Alec Skempton.Farey, Jr., John" in: ''A Bio ...
providing the bulk of detailed criticism where
John Taylor and
Marc Brunel
Sir Marc Isambard Brunel (, ; 25 April 1769 – 12 December 1849) was a French-British engineer who is most famous for the work he did in Britain. He constructed the Thames Tunnel and was the father of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.
Born in Franc ...
showed little knowledge of the system. Lennard's resulting bill ran out of time in the next session of parliament.
One of the grievances taken up, which reflected Robertson's own status as a patent agent in private practice, was that officials within the
Patent Office also acted as agents. The ''Mechanics Magazine'' favoured prison for them. In fact the profession was close to a closed shop in the 1820s, with the insiders Moses Poole and William Carpmael virtually cornering the business, and Robertson the only newcomer.
Another bill by
Richard Godson
Richard Godson, QC (1797–1849) was an English barrister and politician. He was member of Parliament for in 1831–32 and then 1832–34 and 1837–1849.[Benjamin Rotch
Benjamin Rotch (1794–1854), was a British barrister, politician and author.
Rotch was MP for Knaresborough from 1832 to 1835.
He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery
Kensal Green Cemetery is a cemetery in the Kensal Green area of Que ...]
, of 1833, was disliked by Robertson. He himself gave evidence before the Ewart Committee of 1835 on
industrial design
Industrial design is a process of design applied to physical Product (business), products that are to be manufactured by mass production. It is the creative act of determining and defining a product's form and features, which takes place in advan ...
, and the House of Commons committee on patent law in 1849.
The ''Trades Newspaper''
In 1825
John Limbird
John Limbird (1796?-1883) was an English stationer, bookseller and publisher, characterised by an obituarist as "the father of our periodical writing".
John Limbird was christened on 1 May 1796 in the parish of St. Nicholas, Glatton, Huntingdonsh ...
was interested in founding a ''Mechanics' Newspaper'' with Robertson. The project was diverted by the intervention of
John Gast's committee, becoming the ''Trades Newspaper'' of 1825 to 1827. Robertson was squared by being made editor, a decision unacceptable to Francis Place, who thought Robertson was not to be trusted, and wanted
Edward Baines. In radical politics, Robertson and Hodgskin actually differed in their analysis. When ''Labour Defended'', Hodgskin's landmark pamphlet, was reviewed in the ''Newspaper'' in 1825, there was a note of dissent from Robertson on
fixed capital
In accounting, fixed capital is any kind of real, physical asset that is used repeatedly in the production of a product. In economics, fixed capital is a type of capital good that as a real, physical asset is used as a means of production which i ...
. This attitude diminished the ground on which Hodgskin was innovative. On the other hand, his ideas were quickly spread through the paper. Place attacked Robertson in consequence, in the ''Artizan''.
Works
Robertson wrote ''Lives of Eminent Scotsmen'' (1821). ''Lives of the Scottish Poets'' (1821–22) has also been attributed to him.
As a man of letters, Robertson is known for ''The Percy Anecdotes'', 20 vols. London, 1821–3 (subsequent editions 1830, 1868, 1869, and various American editions). The volumes, which came out in forty-four monthly parts, were supposedly written by Sholto and Reuben Percy: Reuben was
Thomas Byerley, and Sholto was Robertson. The so-called "Brothers Percy" had met to discuss the work at the Percy coffee-house in Rathbone Place in
Fitzrovia
Fitzrovia () is a district of central London, England, near the West End. The eastern part of area is in the London Borough of Camden, and the western in the City of Westminster. It has its roots in the Manor of Tottenham Court, and was urban ...
, from which the work took its name.
Sir Richard Phillips
Sir Richard Phillips (13 December 1767 – 2 April 1840) was an English schoolteacher, author, publisher and vegetarianism activist.
Life
Phillips was born in London. Following some political difficulties in Leicester where he was a schoolte ...
later claimed that the original idea arose from his suggestion, made to
John Mayne
John Mayne (1759–1836) was a Scottish printer, journalist and poet born in Dumfries. In 1780, his poem ''The Siller Gun'' appeared in its original form in ''Ruddiman's Magazine'', published by Walter Ruddiman in Edinburgh. and
Alexander Tilloch
Alexander Tilloch FSA (Scot) (28 February 1759 – 1825) was a Scottish journalist and inventor. He founded the ''Philosophical Magazine''.
Early life
The son of John Tilloch, a tobacco merchant and magistrate of Glasgow, he was born there on ...
, to file the anecdotes which had appeared in ''
The Star
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
'' newspaper over the years. The Percys compiled a collection of
anecdote
An anecdote is "a story with a point", such as to communicate an abstract idea about a person, place, or thing through the concrete details of a short narrative or to characterize by delineating a specific quirk or trait. Occasionally humorous ...
s, on a similar plan. Their success, which was a publishing phenomenon, was as a collection of "gobbets" suitable for social small-talk, or what in modern parlance would be a
bluffer's guide to appearing well read.
Lord Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and Peerage of the United Kingdom, peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and h ...
called them indispensable.
[Topham, p. 91.]
The two collaborators began a series of ''Percy Histories, or interesting Memorials of the Capitals of Europe'', but this got no further than ''London'', 1823, in 3 vols. Robertson also started in 1828, as Sholto Percy, an abridgment of the ''
Waverley Novels
The Waverley Novels are a long series of novels by Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832). For nearly a century, they were among the most popular and widely read novels in Europe.
Because Scott did not publicly acknowledge authorship until 1827, the se ...
''.
References
*
*J. E. C. Palmer (edited by H. W. Paar), ''Authority, idiosyncracy, and corruption in the early railway press, 1823–1844'', Journal of the Railway and Canal Historical Society, July 1995, pp. 442–457.
*Jonathan R. Topham, ''John Limbird, Thomas Byerley, and the Production of Cheap Periodicals in the 1820s'', Book History Vol. 8, (2005), pp. 75–106. Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/30227373
Notes
;Attribution
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robertson, Joseph Clinton
1788 births
1852 deaths
Patent attorneys
19th-century Scottish writers
Scottish editors