Who was Alex Robertson?

I have been looking through my collection and I came across this letter written to Alex Robertson in 1854. I bought it originally because I thought it looked really nice with the Penny Red, postmarks and seal. It's a really nice piece overall and the handwriting in the letter is really beautifully done. It is a legal letter and so it isn't that interesting. It is full of the normal legal talk you would expect from a solicitor. It is about a case (McLaren v Buchanan). Mr Buchanan owed some money to Mr McLaren but then Mr McLaren died, so Mr Buchanan's solicitor is writing to Mr Robertson who seems to have been Mr McLaren's friend asking for an opinion. Maybe the two were close friends, but the letter doesn't say. What I found very interesting was that there was no need for an address. The letter is addressed to "Alex Robertson, Esq., Writer, Perth". I thought that clearly Mr Robertson was so well known as a writer than there didn't need to be any other address! I haven't seen any other letters of the time with names and job titles instead of addresses so I think this must be quite rare. Alex and Robertson are both very common names in Scotland and my guess is that there would be quite a few Alex Robertsons in a town of that size. (Perth is a place I know quite well and some of my family came from there.)

There is nothing else of great historical interest about the letter so I tried to find out who Alex Robertson was and why people could send mail to "Alex Robertson, Writer, Perth" and it would get to him.

Sometimes Google is your friend! It directed me to the National Library of Scotland website and I discovered that Alex Robertson was indeed a writer who lived in Perth in the 1850s. The Perth Directory of 1852-53 was a "Post Office directory" and listed people and their professions. It is fascinating, especially some of the jobs listed. There was an Alexander Clark who was a "lath splitter", a James Club who was a "coach trimmer" and a James Cuthill who was a "hostler". I have no idea what those jobs were. A Mrs Janet Eadie is described as "mangle". There are many more. There are lots of Alexander Robertsons listed and the first is our man - a writer living at 35 St John Street. St John Street is still there today (Perth was known as St John's Town) and is an important shopping street in the town centre. The buildings are very old and I am sure 35 St John's Street is the same building that Mr Robertson lived in. There is a shop underneath and flats upstairs, which is probably the same as it was in 1854.

So we know where he lived, but do we know anything else about him? What did he write? Books? Plays? Poetry? I haven't been able to find anything about this. He probably wasn't well-known outside the Perth area. It would have been interesting to read some of his work or at least to know what kind of things he wrote but it doesn't really matter.

What is very interesting is that directories like the Perth Directory existed, so Post Office staff would be able to make sure that letters like this got to the right Alex Robertson! My first thought is that Mr Robertson must have been famous enough for people to know who he was but perhaps not. Someone else could have written a letter to "Mrs Eadie, Mangle, Perth" or to "Mr J Club, Coach trimmer, Perth" and the letters would still have got to where they were supposed to.

I thought I would learn something about Alex Robertson and instead I've learned about Victorian Post Office directories! Isn't postal history wonderful?