Robertson, Frederick William

Robertson, Frederick William, an English clergyman, was born in London, Feb. 3, 1816. At the age of nine he was sent to a grammar school in Beverley, Yorkshire, where he remained a few years, and then accompanied his parents to the Continent. In 1832 he entered the Edinburgh Academy, and the next year proceeded to the Edinburgh University. He was originally designed for the bar, but the study of law did not please him, and he would gladly have been a soldier. Certain difficulties intervening in the way of obtaining a commission, Mr. Robertson entered Brasenose College, Oxford (1836), to study for the Church. The purity of his life and the depth of his religious feeling prepared him to enter upon this new career without regret. His first appointment was to the curacy of St. Maurice and St. Mary Calendar; but his health failed in the course of a year, and he was compelled to visit the Continent. On his return to England, he was for a time curate to the incumbent of Christ Church, Cheltenham. In the beginning of 1847 he removed to St. Ebbes, Oxford, and was just attracting the notice of the undergraduates, when he was offered the incumbency of Trinity Chapel, Brighton. Here his eloquence and originality always attracted large and intellectual audiences. He was accused of not being very orthodox in his belief and teaching. This is supposed to have hastened his death, which took place Aug. 15, 1853. He was the author of Lectures and Addresses on Literary and Social Topics (Lond. 1858, 1861): — Expository Lectures on Corinthians (ibid. 1859): — Sermons, four series ( 1855- 63; new ed., with Memoir, Boston, 1870, 2 vols.). His Life and Letters have been edited by S. A. Brooke (1865, 2 vols.). See Chambers's Encyclop. s.v.; Appletons' Cyclop. s.v.; Meth. Quar. Rev. Oct. 1866; Boston Rev. July, 1866.