David Robertson

by Colin Campbell

DAVID was born in the parish of Kippen, Stirlingshire, in 1795 the son of a farmer. After being educated locally, he was apprenticed to William Turnbull, bookseller, Trongate, Glasgow in 1810. After Turnbull’s death in 1810, Robertson carried on the business for several years, in partnership with Thomas Atkinson.

In 1830 this partnership was dissolved, and Robertson opened new premises at 188 Trongate with his house at 51 South Hanover Street.

His gift of storytelling, his love of Scottish poetry, and his tact and shrewdness soon won him valued friendships and success, and his place of business became a rendezvous for local poets, writers and artists. In addition to bookselling, he began publishing.

In 1837 he was appointed Her Majesty’s Bookseller in Glasgow.

His obituary in the Glasgow Herald read,

“Death of David Robertson, Esq. – Few of our fellow-citizens were better known; none were more respected and beloved………….. and his place of business in Trongate continued, until the day of his demise, the resort of many of our local celebrities. His love of Scottish song was intense, while his exquisite sense of the ludicrous imparted a peculiar unction to his relish for wit and humour…………… He was one of the most kind-hearted, upright, and lovable of men….”

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In 1826, he married Frances Aitken, daughter of a prominent Glasgow builder. They had three sons and a daughter.

He died on 6 October 1854.

(Ack: National Galleries of Scotland (Image), Glasgow’s Cultural History, the Glasgow Herald, Literary Landmarks of Glasgow, 1898 by James A. Kilpatrick)

David Robertson monument

Douglas Alexander Bannatyne

by Colin Campbell

Douglas Bannatyne was born on 25 March 1878, in Glasgow to Mark and Kate Bannatyne. He was the youngest of five children.

In 1900, Douglas matriculated at the University of Glasgow to study Law. He lived with his family at Windsor Terrace in Glasgow for most of his degree and was outstanding, receiving distinctions in all his subjects. He received five prizes during his time as Glasgow, in Constitutional Law & History, Civil Law, Conveyancing, Forensic Medicine and, in Scots Law, he received the Robert Ross Prize for his eminence in class examinations. After graduating with LLB on 21 April 1903, he became a law apprentice and continued living in Glasgow in his family home.

Douglas joined the Inns of Court Officers Training Corps shortly after the outbreak of the First World War and received a commission for the Royal Scots in 1915. He served in the 1st/9th Battalion Royal Scots, serving on the Western Front in France. After being transferred to 51st Highland Division, their baptism of fire with the Division came on The Somme with the attack on High Wood on 23 July with heavy casualties. Later they took part in the Battle of Arras in April 1917. The Battalion was transferred to 15th Scottish Division on 1st June 1918. Douglas was killed in action on 1 August, during an Allied advance on the town of Fere-en-Tardenois, Department of Aisne. He was forty years old. He had never married.

He is buried at the Raperie British Military Cemetery in Villmontoire, Hauts de France.

(Ack: Glasgow University (Image) and text, CWGC, ScotlandsPeople)

Douglas Alexander Bannatyne Monument

John Burns

by Colin Campbell

John Burns was born in Perth on 4th September 1815. Having lost both his parents he was sent to live with his grandfather, a farmer who lived near Methven.

Having tried several occupations, he came to Glasgow in 1838 and studied medicine at Anderson’s College and Portland Street Medical School. He joined the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1846 and was elected a Fellow of the Faculty in 1851.

From 1846 he spent two years travelling in Europe, Egypt, and the Holy Land.

Returning to Glasgow, he took up practice in John Street in the Bridgeton district of Glasgow where he became a much respected and indeed loved figure. He dispensed his own prescriptions and had his own methods of treatment which included the use of a red-hot poker in the treatment of sciatica. He was also a great believer in proper diet (frequently recommending the use of buttermilk in cures) and abstinence from alcohol. In an unusual method of record keeping, he gave the patient a card with the patient’s own particulars and diagnosis on it and told to bring it with him when he next visited. A man of few words, he hated garrulousness in others and had little time for malingerers.

He held the post of Parish Medical Officer and Justice of the Peace (JP) for some years.

He died at home in Fitzroy Place, Glasgow on 24 March 1910 at the age of 94 having practiced until two years before his death. He and his wife, Christina Allan, who had predeceased him by 15 years had had no children.

(Ack: GU Archives; Glasgow Medical Journal 1910, text and image, Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow)

Dr John Burns Monument

William McGill

by Colin Campbell

William McGill was born in Port William, Wigtonshire, on 27th January 1817 to Robert McGill and Helen Gifford.

He became a Licentiate of the Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow in 1848 (a Fellow in 1863) and became a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh in 1859.

By 1856 he had been engaged by the City of Glasgow Police to be Physician to the force.

The task of a Physician to a Police Force was multi-faceted. Not only did the Physician have to be available to give forensic evidence at criminal trials (especially in the matter of sanity) but also be a general practitioner to the members of the force and their families.

He graduated MD from Glasgow University in 1867.

There is a suggestion that in 1860 he might have practiced first as a surgeon at 4 Duke Street, Glasgow with a house nearby at 3 Balmanno Street.

By 1863 had had a home and consulting rooms at 183 George Street and by 1880 he had moved to 9 Jane Street (now West George Street), Blythswood Square, Glasgow with his consulting rooms at 9 South Albion Street (the Main Police Office). He was for 40 years the Physician to the City of Glasgow Police and retired in 1896.

He died on 17 June 1899, aged 82. His wife, Lilias Muter, daughter of the Rev Robert Muter had predeceased him, and they had had no children.

(Ack: Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow (Image), text, Glasgow Police Museum, Glasgow University Roll of Graduates, Scottish PO Directories, ScotlandsPeople.)

William McGill Monument

Henry Dyer

Henry Dyer was a Scottish Engineer who played a major part in the industrialisation of Japan in the latter half of the nineteenth century through his capacity as founding Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering in Tokyo. He was born in 1848 in what is now Bellshill about eight miles east of Glasgow. Henry was one of three children of John and Margaret Dyer. After the family moved to Glasgow about 1865 Dyer became an apprentice engineer and attended classes at Anderson’s College, now the University of Strathclyde.

From 1868 until 1873 Henry Dyer attended the University of Glasgow where he graduated with an MA, BSc and CE (Certificate of Engineering). At the age of 24 Dyer received an invitation to become Principal of the Imperial College of Engineering (ICE) being set up in Tokyo by the Japanese Ministry of Public Works. Having accepted the invitation he set sail from Southampton to Japan. A year later he was followed by his wife to be, Marie Ferguson. While in Japan Henry and Marie had five children, the eldest of which died in infancy.

The courses given at the ICE had a strong practical element, the last two years of a six-year course being spent entirely on practical work. The courses were revolutionary at the time and much credit for the rapid industrialisation of Japan at the end of the nineteenth century has been attributed to the work of Dyer’s College as it was often known.

After almost ten years in Japan Dyer resigned from his post at the ICE for personal and family reasons, and on July 14 1882 the family returned home to Glasgow via San Francisco. Before leaving Japan, Dyer was awarded the Order of the Rising Sun for his work in the country and appointed Honorary Principal of the College.  Later when the College became part of the University of Tokyo, he became an Emeritus Professor of the University.

Henry Dyer, still a young man, devoted the rest of his life to a number of activities of an educational and cultural nature. In particular he was a life governor of the Royal Technical College in Glasgow (now the University of Strathclyde) and Chairman of the Glasgow School Board for many years. Throughout the rest of his life he took a strong interest in all things Japanese and befriended many Japanese students who came to study in Glasgow. The University of Glasgow honoured him by awarding Dyer both a DSc and an LLD.

Dyer brought a number of artefacts back from Japan with him, many of which were donated by him or his daughter to the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, the Mitchell Library (both in Glasgow) and the Edinburgh Central. Library. Throughout his life he published many books and papers details of which can be seen in the links below.

Henry Dyer died on 25th September, 1918, aged 70, and was buried in the Necropolis, later to be joined by his wife and daughter.

Henry Dyer – Necropolis

For more about Henry Dyer’s life please see

http://www.henrydyer.org.uk

Hunter, R, (with a Foreword by Lesley Hart), Henry Dyer, A Scottish Engineer in Japan, published by Amazon in ebook and paperback, 2017.