John Robison

(1739-1805)
Professor of Natural Philosophy, University of Edinburgh

Born in Boghall, Stirlingshire and educated at the University of Glasgow, the young John Robison entered the navy and accompanied Wolfe's army to Quebec and the pyrrhic victory on the Plains of Abraham, as a tutor to another young officer. He is credited with having brought back the story that Wolfe would rather have written Thomas Gray's "Elegy written in a country churchyard" than taken the Plains of Abraham.

Robison returned to a lecturing post at Glasgow vacated by Joseph Black, and then accompanied Admiral Knowles to Russia to reorganise the Imperial Fleet, in the course of which he was appointed to the Chair of Mathematics with the Imperial Naval Cadet Corps in Kronstadt in 1772. He returned to Scotland in 1773 to take the Chair of Natural Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh, which he occupied until his death. He was one of the leading scientists of his day, besides being an accomplished musician and linguist. In 1789 he presented the Library with a Bible in Russian (Moscow: 1767) and at his death the University and the Library received an important collection of Russian historical medals which Princess Ekaterina Daschkova had entrusted to his care.

(Portrait by permission of the University of Edinburgh)