Walter Robertson

Chief Justice of Tobago, and an early purchaser of land. W. Robertson was shown as the Present Proprietor (with A Symson) of Sandy Bay (St Patrick parish) Lots no. 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 (originally bought in 1766 and 1767 by Charles Simpson as to Lots nos. 9, 10 and 12 and William Gardiner as to Lots no . 11 & 12), which became the Bon Accord estate.

1. Will of Walter Robertson Chief Justice of Tobago proved 11/05/1789. In the will (made 07/11/1780), he left his estates in Tobago in trust to his brother Alexander Robertson Doctor of Physic of Aberdeen and four others, resident in Tobago (David Mill, Thomas Wilson, William Bruce and Francis Kenneth McKenzie - the latter moved to Grenada and was replaced in a codicil by John Balfour), and bequeathed among other legacies £500 to his friend and partner in the estates, Alexander Symson of the island of Grenada, 100 guineas each to Ninian Home, Penelope Home, Alexander Campbell and Patrick Maxwell, all of Grenada, and £100 to the infirmary at Aberdeen. He left to his mulatto housekeeper Anna [?] Tyson an annuity of £40 p.a. and 'my young negro slave called Nan' , and manumitted his servant Bristol and - if Bristol requested it - Bristol's daughter also. His residuary legatee was his brother Alexander Robertson.

'Tables showing the Lots in each Parish, numbered as originally granted - the original Grantee - the name of the Lot, or lots, if one has been acquired, and the present Possessor where there is one' and 'A Table, showing the Estates in cultivation in 1832, and their Owners, in 1832, copied from the list appended to Byres' map of that date, with those in cultivation in 1862', Henry Iles Woodcock, A History of Tobago (Ayr: Smith and Grant, 1867; new impression London: Frank Cass and Company Limited, 1971); John Fowler, A summary account of the present flourishing state of the respectable colony of Tobago in the British West Indies illustrated with a map of the island and a plan of its settlement, agreeably to the sales by his Majesty’s Commissioners (London: A Grant, 1774), pp. 58-59.

1. PROB 11/1179/107.