46 Newman Edmund Robertson Biography

On November Edmund Robertson (–) won a seat in the House of Commons as Liberal MP for Dundee. He DUNDEE’S GRAND OLD MAN represented Dundee for twenty-three years, standing for re-election eight times and sitting in Parliament under seven different Prime Ministers through a period when there was much division among the Liberals in Dundee. He held the post of Civil Lord of the Admiralty from to in the government of Gladstone and then Rosebery and was Secretary to the Admiralty from to , when Sir Henry Campbell- Bannerman was Prime Minister. Regrettably ill health forced his early retirement from the House of Commons in and, following his elevation to the peerage as Lord Lochee of Gowrie, he served out the remaining three years of his life in the House of Lords. Anne Newman tells the story of his life. 16 Journal of Liberal History 46 Spring 2005 DUNDEE’S GRAND OLD MAN obertson was by all compulsory it ought to provide in higher education was remark- accounts a man of the means for it.’ able, exemplifying his dedication great talent, integ- Edmund Daniel Robertson to attaining knowledge at the rity and humility, as was born on October highest level. The philosopher his obituary in the in the schoolhouse at Kinnaird, John Stuart Mill recognised Rob- RDundee Year Book exempli- Perthshire, where his father was ertson’s talent and gave his spe- fied: ‘this singularly gifted man the parish schoolmaster for over cial commendation in that received no help from patron- thirty years. Edmund was the eld- Robertson be awarded the Rec- age … he owed everything to his est of the five children of Edmund torial Prize for the best essay on a own perseverance and energy’. (senior) and Ann Robertson, philosophical subject. He was remembered as a man both of whom lived all their lives Robertson won a scholarship of a very kindly and affectionate in Perthshire, Edmund senior to enter Lincoln College, Oxford nature, with a penetrating intel- being from a humble family from where he completed a second lect. Unfortunately, however, he Middle Dalguise in the Tay Val- BA, gained First Class Honours never cultivated the art of say- ley. Edmund Robertson received in Classical Moderations () ing less or more than he thought all of his elementary education and in Literae Humaniore (), and his plain speech and hatred from his father and it is said that won the Oxford University Inter- of self-advertisement and cir- it was here that he gained a solid national Law Prize (), and cumlocution ‘retarded his pro- ‘grounding in the Liberal princi- was elected a Fellow of Corpus motion.’ This article attempts to ples to which he adhered tena- Christi College (). In reconstruct an image of Edmund ciously during his life’. Although he successfully competed for the Robertson, gleaned from news- Robertson was a self-made man Vinerian Law Scholarship, and paper reports of his speeches, and ‘he never forgot the debt which graduated with an MA in . to describe the man who earned he owed to his father’ and is the affectionate title of Dundee’s reputed, on the eve of entering ‘Grand Old Man’. Parliament, to have sent a letter to The barrister, the academic, a meeting of Liberals held in the the teacher Kinnaird school stating ‘I am glad Robertson went on to win a A village schoolboy with a you are going to meet in the old scholarship to Lincoln’s Inn, passion for education schoolroom, which to me is asso- delivering his obligatory Tancred When standing for election for ciated with so many profound student oration in Latin. He was the first time, Robertson’s passion emotions. My first instructor in called to the Bar as a barrister of for education and good humour Liberalism, and in everything else, Lincoln’s Inn in and, select- were evident when he addressed was my father.’ ing the Northern Circuit for his the voters of the ‘Intellectual Edmund practice, he quickly gained a repu- Robertson, Lord Ward’ as he termed them. He Lochee of Gowrie tation as an excellent counsel and expressed his belief in free educa- (1885–1908) – The scholar eloquent speaker. He was exam- tion, emphasing how ‘one result from the Dundee The young man with a great pas- iner in English Constitutional of the education imparted under Year Book of sion for knowledge proceeded to History at London University, the Act had been the decrease 1911, reproduced St Andrew’s University where he –, and Public Examiner in courtesy of of juvenile crime’ and that as Dundee City matriculated in the – ses- Jurisprudence, Oxford, –. ‘the State had made education Archives. sion. Robertson’s achievement He was appointed Reader on Law Journal of Liberal History 46 Spring 2005 17 DUNDEE’S GRAND OLD MAN to the Council of Legal Educa- (formed in ) encountered ment for Counties’ with ‘enlarged tion, and became Joint Examiner many challenges. Dundee was powers’ to deal effectively with in Jurisprudence and Legal Con- in fact the largest constituency ‘the regulation of the liquor trade, stitutional History at the Univer- in Scotland at the time. On a the utilisation of vacant spaces, sity of London, and in Roman personal level, Robertson had to the reclamation of common lands, and International Law to the Inns overcome the considerable debate sanitary improvements and other of Court. He became a Profes- about the necessity or otherwise matters affecting the social well- sor of Roman Law at University of local candidates and he was being of the community.’ College, London for several years seen by some as ‘not truly local, a However, where the issue of the and of Common Law at the Inns carpetbagger’. However, the vot- disestablishment of the Church of of Court. In St Andrew’s ers of Dundee soon learned that Scotland was concerned he was University conferred an LL D he had grown up and received his more circumspect. The standard upon Robertson in recognition early education in the area and radical line at the time was to of his academic achievements. He Robertson rose to the challenge favour disestablishment, but Rob- was appointed Queen’s Counsel and ‘charmed an audience of ertson (a moderate churchman) in and made a Bencher of , at the Kinnaird Hall’ with seemed to avoid openly saying he Lincoln’s Inn in . His reputa- his outspoken profession of the was in favour. He assured the vot- tion as a barrister spread interna- Liberal faith and excellent ora- ers that ‘there was no man more tionally, and he became one of the tory skills. strongly opposed than he was to very few British barristers ever Support from John Leng (edi- the interference of the State in allowed to plead in an American tor of the Advertiser at the time any way with religious affairs’ and Court of Law. and later political colleague of that ‘disestablishment in Scotland Robertson’s academic achieve- Robertson’s) no doubt sealed was one which must be settled in ments were well known when he the Dundee approval. In fact the harmony with the wishes of the faced his Dundee constituents Advertiser reported that: ‘Mr Rob- Scottish people.’ (who were predominantly from ertson showed a disposition not Dundee in the late nineteenth working-class backgrounds) for only to march forward in the van century was a working man’s the first time. The Dundee Cou- of progress, but also such a grasp, a constituency, and foremost in rier and Argus assured its readers, knowledge, and capacity for deal- Edmund Robertson’s mind, as however, that their prospective ing with public questions that it he faced his first election, was his Member ‘though comparatively was delightful to listen to him. concern for the working class. He young’ had ‘business experience His speech, in fact, was a political was in favour of Board of Trade … sufficiently wide to correct education.’ The Advertiser also certificates of competency being that tendency to academic sub- assured the voters that Robert- granted to men in charge of steam tleties and that proneness to the son had a ‘thorough acquaintance engines and boilers and drivers of hair-splitting of the schools only with the theory and practice of locomotives and traction engines too often found characterising law’ and that he had recently rep- to protect the safety of the public. distinguished scholars and uni- resented local investment interests He was in favour of the establish- versity dons’. An active mem- in the American Courts when he ment of public Courts of Inquiry ber of the Reform Club (which acted as counsel for the Oregon- into the cause of sudden and acci- was founded by Liberals and ian Railway Company in dental deaths in Scotland and for remained the party’s headquarters when the company was brought relatives of deceased persons to until the late s) Robertson before the High Courts of the have the ‘liberty to cross-exam- contributed regularly to the Daily United States. ine witnesses on the subject’. He News and expanded his growing Robertson’s address for the believed that shipwrecked seamen journalistic expertise by con- election featured the reform should be paid their wages up tributing several articles on legal Robert- of the land laws, the adjustment until the time they were landed and constitutional subjects to the of taxation, the abolition of the back in the country; and he saw ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia son’s dis- game laws and temperance legis- the overwork of railway workers Britannica. He was also the author lation. Robertson (who belonged as ‘not only cruel but a source of of American Home Rule: A Sketch like of the to the radical section of the Lib- danger to the travelling public’.

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