Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 48.djvu/404

  578; Lowndes's Bibl. Man. (Bohn); Nichols's Lit. Anecdotes, ix. 187; Watt's Bibl. Brit.] 

ROBERTS, WILLIAM PROWTING (1806–1871), solicitor and trades-union advocate, the youngest son of Thomas Roberts, vicar of Chelmsford, Essex, and master of the grammar school there, was born at Chelmsford in 1806, and educated at Charterhouse School, London, which he entered in 1820. In 1828 he was admitted a solicitor and practised at Bath, and afterwards at Manchester, having an office also in Essex Street, Strand, London. While he was at Bath, in 1838, he became acquainted with Henry Vincent and other leading chartists, and was subsequently closely associated in many agitations for the extension of the franchise and the improvement of the condition of the working classes. He acted as legal adviser to Feargus O'Connor's ‘land bank,’ and his association with that scheme caused him considerable pecuniary loss. From 1843 he was concerned in nearly all the law affairs of the trade unions, and in 1844 was formally appointed by the Miners' Association of Great Britain and Ireland as their standing legal adviser, at 1,000l. a year, his popular title being the ‘miners' attorney-general.’ He was a most able, indefatigable, and pertinacious advocate, and became the ‘terror of many a local bench.’

In 1862 and 1863, after a visit to the Holy Land, he delivered lectures on biblical subjects in Manchester and neighbourhood, at the request of local church of England societies. One of the last cases in which he was engaged was the organisation, in 1867, of the defence of the fenians Allen, Larkin, and O'Brien, the so-called Manchester martyrs, who were hanged for the murder of a policeman. He shortly afterwards retired to Heronsgate House, Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire, where he died on 7 Sept. 1871, aged 64, and was buried at Chorley Wood church, Rickmansworth.

He was married twice: first to Mary Moody of Bath; and, secondly, to Mary Alice Hopkins, granddaughter to Dr. Hopkins, bishop of Londonderry, and left children by both marriages.

He published: 1. ‘The Haswell Colliery Explosion, 28 September 1844: Narrative-Report of the Proceedings at the Coroner's Inquest,’ &c., Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1844. 2. ‘What is a Traveller? Random Chapters on the Sunday Restriction Bill of August 1854,’ 1855. 3. ‘Trade Union Bill, 1871,’ 1871.

[Webb's Hist. of Trade-Unionism, 1894, p. 164; Gammage's Chartist Movement, 1894, pp. 79, 180; Holyoake's Sixty Years of an Agitator's Life, i. 105; Parish's List of Carthusians, 1879, p. 198; Beehive, 23 Sept. 1871; information from Rev. C. B. Roberts and Mrs. Stuart (son and daughter of W. P. Roberts), and Sir H. T. Wood.] 

ROBERTSON, ABRAHAM (1751–1826), astronomer and mathematician, son of Abraham Robertson, a man of humble station, was born at Dunse, Berwick, on 4 Nov. 1751. Robertson was educated at Westminster, and early in life kept a school at Ryle in Northumberland, and afterwards at Dunse. When about twenty-four he migrated to London, in the hope of obtaining a situation in the East Indies; but his patron died, and he was thrown on his own resources. Proceeding alone to Oxford, he met with great success, and was patronised by Dr. Smith, the Savilian professor of astronomy, and others. He matriculated from Christ Church on 7 Dec. 1775, graduated B.A. 1779, M.A. 1782, and took orders at Christmas 1782, in which year he obtained the chancellor's medal for an English essay on ‘Original Composition’ (Oxford English Prize Essays, 1836, vol. i.) He became one of the chaplains of Christ Church.

In 1784 Robertson succeeded Dr. Austin as lecturer for Dr. Smith, who was then acting as a physician at Cheltenham. On the death of the latter in 1797, Robertson took his place as Savilian professor of geometry. His lectures were clear, and he was always anxious to encourage his pupils. Thus he printed in 1804 a demonstration of Euclid V, Definition 5, for the benefit of beginners. In 1789 he was presented by the dean and canons of Christ Church to the vicarage of Ravensthorpe, near Northampton, but his principal residence was still in Oxford. In 1795 the Royal Society elected him a fellow. Robertson gave evidence before a committee of the House of Commons on the expediency of replacing London Bridge by a single arch (see the report published in 1801). In 1807 he was in London making calculations for Lord Grenville's system of finance, and in 1808 he drew up the tables for Spencer Perceval's system of increasing the sinking fund by granting life annuities on government security. He was made Savilian professor of astronomy from 1810. He died on 4 Dec. 1826 at the Radcliffe Observatory, Oxford, and was buried in the churchyard of St. Peter's-in-the-East. He married, about 1790, Miss Bacon of Drayton in Berkshire, who predeceased him. He had no children.

His chief work, dedicated to Dr. Cyril Jackson [q. v.], dean of Christ Church, was ‘Sectionum Conicarum Libri VII,’ 1792, with an exhaustive survey of the history of