John Robertson of Plantation

Glasgow merchant, cashier of the Glasgow Arms Bank, father of John Murdoch Robertson (q.v.). The estate of John Robertson banker and merchant of Glasgow was sequestered in 1792, according to an announcement to his creditors in 1816, and the will of William Robertson of Glasgow suggests that John Robertson of Glasgow died between 1804 when the will was made with John Robertson of Glasgow as executor and and 1807 when it was proved. It therefore appears certain that he was not the same man as the John Robertson awarded one half of the compensation for the Mount Pleasant estate on St Vincent with John Murdoch Robertson. The John Robertson shown as the child of John Robertson of the Glasgow Arms Bank was - remarkably - in fact the sister of John Murdoch Robertson.

1. John Robertson bought the Craigiehall estate near Govan Road in 1783, renaming it Plantation. He sold it in 1793 to John Mair, who rebuilt the house. Robertson Street in Glasgow is named after the family.

2. John Robertson was a partner in The Smithfield Company, an important iron-working concern in Glasgow, active for a century from c. 1734, but in the hands of trustees in 1828. The Glasgow Arms Bank closed in 1793 and appears to represent a cul-de-sac in Scottish banking.

1. http://www.theglasgowstory.com/image/?inum=TGSB00308 [accessed 14/09/2015]; John Guthrie Smith & John Oswald Mitchell Old country houses of the old Glasgow gentry (1878) LXXX Plantation, http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/smihou080.htm [accessed 14/09/2015].

2. John Guthrie Smith & John Oswald Mitchell Old country houses of the old Glasgow gentry (1878) LXXX Plantation, http://gdl.cdlr.strath.ac.uk/smihou/smihou080.htm [accessed 14/09/2015]; Edinburgh Gazette 3611 11/01/1828 p. 11