orator than as a writer. Several of his sermons have been preserved from shorthand reports, and are published in Guthrie's biography of him; but they give little idea of the magnetic influence he exercised in the pulpit. Three of his lectures—‘Martin Luther,’ ‘German Student Life,’ and ‘Poetry’—were published in one volume in 1892. Numerous poems, hymns, and letters are included in Dr. Brown's ‘Life of Robertson.’
[Dr. James Brown's Life of William B. Robertson, D.D.; McKelvie's Annals and Statistics of the United Presbyterian Church; Dr. John Ker's Scottish Nationality and other Papers; Professor William Graham's Essays, Historical and Biographical; United Presbyterian Magazine, vol. for 1886; Arthur Guthrie's Robertson of Irvine.]
ROBERTSON, Sir WILLIAM TINDAL (1825–1889), physician, eldest son of Frederick Fowler Robertson of Bath, and of Anne Tindal his wife, was born in 1825. He was educated at King Edward VI's grammar school at Grantham, and he afterwards became a pupil of Dr. H. P. Robarts of Great Coram Street, and a student of University College, London. He matriculated at the London University in 1846, but he does not appear to have graduated. He obtained a license to practise from the Apothecaries' Company in 1848, and was admitted a member of the Royal College of Surgeons of England in 1850. He acted as resident medical officer at the Middlesex Hospital in 1848–9, and he became a resident surgeon to the Royal Free Hospital in 1850. He afterwards proceeded to Paris to complete his medical studies, and in 1853 he graduated M.D. at Edinburgh. He commenced to practise in Nottingham in the following year, and for nearly twenty years he acted as physician to the Nottingham General Hospital. An able speaker and an excellent organiser, he soon made his influence felt in Nottingham. Largely owing to his energy, the town now holds a conspicuous position among the great teaching centres of the north of England, for it was through his exertions that the Oxford local examinations were introduced into the town. The Literary and Philosophical Society also owed its origin largely to his endeavours, and he helped to found the Robin Hood rifles. He was a member of the Nottingham town council, and acted as a local secretary when the British Association met in the town in 1866. He also delivered the address on medicine at the meeting of the British Medical Association in 1857. His eyesight began to fail, and he soon became blind from glaucoma in 1873. He retired to Brighton, and in 1874 he was elected a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London. At Brighton he interested himself in politics and municipal affairs. He was chairman of the Brighton town council, J.P. for Brighton and Sussex, chairman of the Brighton Conservative Association in 1880, and M.P. for that borough from 1886 till death. He was knighted in 1888. He died suddenly on 5 Oct. 1889. He married, in 1855, Elizabeth Ann, daughter of John Leavers of The Park, Nottingham, by whom he had four sons.
[Obituary notice in the British Medical Journal, 1889, ii. 848.]
ROBERTSON, Mrs. WYBROW (1847–1884), actress. [See Litton, Marie.]
ROBETHON, JOHN (d. 1722), secretary to George I, was born at Authon in Perche of a respectable Calvinist family. He is said to have joined the service of King William III when Prince of Orange only. He came to England about 1689, and was naturalised in 1693, being employed by William III, at first in a humble capacity. In 1693 he acted as secretary to Baron Schütz, the Hanoverian envoy in London. Afterwards he passed into the service of the Earl of Portland who, when ambassador to Paris in 1698, took Robethon with him. In Sept. of the same year Robethon became private secretary to William III. Among William's correspondents, Robethon commended himself most to the Duke of Zell, and when the latter visited England in 1701 the Earl of Portland asked the secretary to further his interests in that quarter. On William's death, Robethon transferred his services as ‘secretary of embassies’ to George William, duke of Zell; George William died in 1705, and Robethon was taken into the employ of his son-in-law, George Lewis, afterwards George I of England. Robethon now gathered into his hands the threads of a vast European correspondence. The leading whigs in England kept themselves constantly in touch with the house of Brunswick, and all the letters from the elector's family to their supporters in England were drafted by Robethon. Marlborough supplied him with large sums of money in return for valuable information touching the intrigues of Louis XIV at the court of Saxony. Robethon also worked hard to assist Marlborough to neutralise Charles XII [see under Robinson, John, (1650–1723)] and to expose the illusory character of Louis' overtures to the allies in 1707. He was very active in obtaining information about the court of St. Germains, and during 1714 Marlborough and other whig leaders insisted in their
