J. M. Robertson

J. M. Robertson

John Mackinnon Robertson PC (14 November 1856[1] – 5 January 1933[2]) was a prolific journalist, advocate of rationalism and secularism, and Liberal Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom for Tyneside from 1906 to 1918.

Biography

Robertson was born in Brodick on the Isle of Arran; his father moved the family to Stirling while he was still young, and he attended school there until the age of 13. He worked first as a clerk and then as a journalist, eventually becoming assistant editor of the Edinburgh Evening News.[3]

He wrote in February 1906 to a friend that he "gave up the 'divine'" when he was a teenager.[4] His first contact with the freethought movement was as lecture by Charles Bradlaugh in Edinburgh in 1878 and became active in the Edinburgh Secular Society,[5] soon after.[4] It was through the Edinburgh Secular Society that he met William Archer and became writer for the Edinburgh Evening News.[4] Before moving to London to become assistant editor of Bradlaugh's paper National Reformer, subsequently taking over as editor on Bradlaugh's death in 1891.[3] The National Reformer finally closed in 1893. Robertson was also an appointed lecturer for the freethinking South Place Ethical Society[6] from 1899 until the 1920s.

An advocate of the "New Liberalism,"[7] Robertson's political radicalism developed in the 1880s and 1890s, and he first stood for Parliament in 1895, failing to win Bradlaugh's old seat in Northampton as an independent radical liberal. Robertson was a staunch free trader and his Trade and Tariffs (1908) "became a bible for free-traders pursuing the case for cheap food and the expansion of trade".[8]

In 1915 he was appointed to the Privy Council.

At the 1918 General election, as a Liberal candidate he contested Wallsend, a constituency based largely on his Tyneside seat, but finished third. In 1923 he contested the General Election as Liberal candidate for Hendon without success.

Robertson died in London in 1933.[3]

Views

Economically, Robertson has been described as an underconsumptionist, and he gave an early form, perhaps the earliest formal statement, of the paradox of thrift in his 1892 book The Fallacy of Saving.[9][10]

Robertson was an advocate of the Jesus-Myth theory, and in several books he argued against the historicity of Jesus. According to Robertson, the character of Jesus in the New Testament developed from a Jewish cult of Joshua, whom he identifies as a solar deity.

Oxford theologian and orientalist Frederick Cornwallis Conybeare wrote a book titled, The Historical Christ; or, An investigation of the views of Mr. J. M. Robertson, Dr. A. Drews, and Prof. W. B. Smith (1913), directed against the Christ myth theory defended by the three authors.

Selected works

References and sources

References
  1. ↑ Page, Martin. (1984) Britain's Unknown Genius An Introduction to the Life-Work of John Mackinnon Robertson. London: South Place Ethical Society, p. 13. ISBN 0902368109
  2. ↑ Wells, G.A. Ed. (1987) J.M. Robertson (1856–1933) Liberal, Rationalist, and Scholar: An Assessment by Several Hands Edited by G.A. Wells. London; Pemberton, p. 26. ISBN 0301870012
  3. 1 2 3 "The Rt. Hon. J. M. Robertson". Retrieved 13 February 2010.
  4. 1 2 3 Wells, G.A. Ed. (1987) J.M. Robertson (1856–1933) Liberal, Rationalist, and Scholar: An Assessment by Several Hands Edited by G.A. Wells. London; Pemberton, p. 13. ISBN 0301870012
  5. ↑ "Edinburgh Secular Society". About us. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  6. ↑ "Progress Through Two Centuries: A Short History of the South Place Ethical Society". Retrieved 13 February 2010.
  7. ↑ https://books.google.com.au/books?id=2XWGuS25msYC&pg=PA45&dq=duncan+tanner+new+liberal+ministers+junior&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CB0Q6AEwAGoVChMIuYSxodOcxwIVIRfbCh2xCQBX#v=onepage&q=duncan%20tanner%20new%20liberal%20ministers%20junior&f=false
  8. ↑ Michael Freeden, 'Robertson, John Mackinnon (1856–1933)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, May 2006, accessed 5 April 2009.
  9. ↑ Robertson, John M. (1892). The Fallacy of Saving.
  10. ↑ Nash, Robert T.; Gramm, William P. (1969). "A Neglected Early Statement the Paradox of Thrift". History of Political Economy. 1 (2): 395–400. doi:10.1215/00182702-1-2-395.
  11. ↑ Robertson, John Mackinnon (1900). Christianity and Mythology. Watts & Company. p. 422. Long before Biblical Judaism was known, the people of Palestine shared in the universal rituals of the primeval cults of sun and moon, Nature and symbol; and the successive waves of conquest, physical and mystical, have only transformed the primordial hallucination. (Image of p. 422 at Google Books)
  12. ↑ Robertson, John Mackinnon (1902). A Short History of Christianity. Watts & Company. p. 13. The older portions of the Pauline epistles show no knowledge of any Jesuine biography or any Jesuine teaching —a circumstance which suggests that the Jesus of Paul is much more remote from Paul's day than is admitted by the records. (Image of p. 13 at Google Books)
Sources

External links

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by
Hugh Crawford Smith		 Member of Parliament for Tyneside
1906–1918 		Constituency abolished
Political offices
Preceded by
Harold Tennant		 Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade
1911–1915 		Succeeded by
E. G. Pretyman
Party political offices
Preceded by
George Lunn		 President of the National Liberal Federation
1920–1923 		Succeeded by
Donald Maclean
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