Joseph Clinton Robertson
British writer
Joseph Clinton Robertson (c.1787–1852), pseudonym Sholto Percy, was a Scottish patent agent, writer and periodical editor. He was a political radical prominent in the early days of the working-class press in London, and in the debates within the Mechanics Institute movement.
Early life
He was born about 1787, the son of Rev. Joseph Robertson and Isobel Mathieson of Stewarton, Scotland. Rev. Joseph Robertson was Minister of Leith Wynd Chapel, Edinburgh, Scotland, but banished from Scotland for performing illegal marriages.
The Mechanics' Magazine
Robertson founded The Mechanics' Magazine in 1823, and edited and largely wrote it until the year of his death. It was a low-priced scientific weekly, and the first publication of its kind. To begin with he was in close alliance with Thomas Hodgskin: they had met in Edinburgh. It took advantage of a stamp tax exemption for technical weeklies not dealing in news.
“Joseph Clinton Robertson” enters the record as british writer. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Joseph, Clinton and Robertson can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Joseph Clinton Robertson” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Joseph, Clinton and Robertson provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q6282174. VIAF identifies the subject as 45030928. The Library of Congress control number is n85312041. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1787, 1852 and 1823.
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This entry incorporates text from “Joseph Clinton Robertson” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.