Early Years
Robertson, along with his siblings was bought up in Liverpool at the Gladstone house in Rodney Street and then at Seaforth House from 1813. He studied at Eton College along with his older brothers Thomas and William. He was moved by his father to Glasgow Academy at the age of sixteen, where he was keen on mathematics, which he judged would be of use in his intended future career as a merchant. He then returned to Liverpool work in the offices of his father's company.
On 28 September 1827 he traveled with his brother Thomas to spend the Winter in Naples. Whilst there they viewed an eruption of Vesuvius. On his return to England he proposed to his father that he should visit the family estates in the West Indies with his father accepting the proposal. Leaving on 12 October 1828 he traveled to Demerara, British Guiana, arriving in November and remained for three months until March 1829. Robertson made record of this journey in his Journal of a Voyage & Residence in the Colony of Demerara which is held in the library of the Liverpool Athenaeum. He traveled back to England via the United States of America where he stopped in Philadelphia.
In 1833 he became a freemason in Liverpool.
Read more about this topic: Robertson Gladstone
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or years:
“If there is a price to pay for the privilege of spending the early years of child rearing in the driver’s seat, it is our reluctance, our inability, to tolerate being demoted to the backseat. Spurred by our success in programming our children during the preschool years, we may find it difficult to forgo in later states the level of control that once afforded us so much satisfaction.”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“They will tell you tough stories of sharks all over the Cape, which I do not presume to doubt utterly,—how they will sometimes upset a boat, or tear it in pieces, to get at the man in it. I can easily believe in the undertow, but I have no doubt that one shark in a dozen years is enough to keep up the reputation of a beach a hundred miles long.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)