James Alexander Robertson, son of Rev. Alexander Robertson, Free Church minister, was born in Ardersier in 1880. He attended school in Inverness and took his first degree in Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen, graduating MA, 1902. He went on to study Divinity at the United Free Church College in Glasgow, and subsequently became a minister of the United Free Church. After holding several charges at Glenlyon, Forfar, Edinburgh and Ballater, in 1920 he was appointed Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the United Free Church College in Aberdeen (later, Christ's College, Church of Scotland). In 1938 he became Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Aberdeen, where he remained until ill health forced his retirement in 1945.
James Robertson wrote several scholarly works on the New Testament, which were well received by reviewer and colleagues alike. The best known of these are The Hidden Romance of the New Testament (1920) and The Spiritual Pilgrimage of Jesus (1917). He was, by all accounts, a powerful and erudite preacher, and this collection contains a number of his prayers.
Edith Anne Stewart was born in Glasgow in 1883, the daughter of a United Free Church minister. The family later moved to Germany and latterly Surrey, England. Edith married James Alexander Robertson in 1919. After their marriage the Robertsons moved to northeast Scotland, where James was to take up his position as Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the United Free Church College in Aberdeen. It was in this area that Edith was to spend much of her ensuing life, and which also provided the inspiration for many of her later pieces in Scots.
Edith Robertson's work reflects, in the main, her commitment to the church and the Christian faith, as well as her interest in the language and culture of the North East. Amongst her earliest published works are the Carmen Jesu Nazereni (1930), which is a translation of the Gospels into verse, and a biographical life of Francis Xavier. Her poems in Scots were published later, and include two interesting collections of poems by Walter de La Mare and Gerard Manley Hopkins which Edith had translated into Scots ( Poems Frae the Suddron (1955), Translations into the Scots Tongue, etc (1968)). Her extensive correspondence shows that she had a wide and varied circle of friends, which included many writers and poets, among them, Marion Angus, David Daiches, Flora Garry, Nan Shepherd, and Douglas Young. The literary correspondence also contains a letter from Samuel Beckett, whose work Edith Robertson seems to have particularly admired. Edith outlived her husband by almost 20 years.
From the guide to the Papers of Edith Anne Stewart Robertson and James Alexander Robertson, 1908 - 1970, (University of Aberdeen)
