69 



" Mr Kobison was educated at tlie High School of Edinburgh, and 

 afterwards attended some classes ut College, including, of course, his 

 father's, who, perceiving in him a decided mechanical turn, removed 

 him from thence, after three years* study, and placed him under the 

 charge of his qld and valued friend, Mr Houston of Johnston, near 

 Paisley, who was at that time erecting extensive manufactories upon 

 his estate for the spinning of cotton, with the advantage of the then 

 recently invented machinery of Arkwright. Here Mr llobison ap- 

 pears to have acquired the taste for constructing and superintending 

 machinery, which remained with him during life. Two or three years 

 afterwards, Mr Robison was removed to Manchester, where he re- 

 mained in somedegree under the protection of the late Mr Watt, whom, 

 it is probable, that he visited at Soho, and made there the acquaint- 

 ance of the younger Mr Watt, and the other members of that cele- 

 brated establishment. His father's great intimacy with the illus- 

 trious inventor (as he must in strictness be termed) of the steani- 

 engine, and the great mutual services which these eminent men had 

 rendered to one another (by far the greatest, however, in the ordi- 

 nary acceptation of the term, being conferred by Dr Robison), of 

 course, introduced Mr Robison with the utmost advantage to an 

 establishment, then not only the first, but the only one of its kind, 

 and must naturally have strengthened his own bent towards mecha- 

 nics, and introduced him to more enlarged and correct notions of 

 engineering than he was likely to attain in the direction even of the 

 greatest cotton factory. I mention these circumstances now, be- 

 cause, though little information has reached me of his early connec- 

 tion with the Soho establishment, there can be no doubt that it 

 exerted the most important influence on his future life, and the 

 friendships which he then formed were amongst the most valuable, 

 and, to the honour of all parties, the most lasting which he enjoyed, 

 as we shall presently see. 



" The truth of what I have now stated, as to the probable enlarge- 

 ment of his views and knowledge by his intercourse with Mr Watt, 

 will appear from the speedy change in his professional views which 

 followed upon his visit to Manchester ; for, having remained in busi- 

 ness there only a year or two, he obtained, through the influence of 

 his father's friend. General Hay Macdowall, in 1802, a mercantile 

 situation in Madras,* which occasioned his being sent up the country 

 to Hyderabad, to estabhsh a branch of the business for the pur- 

 pose of collecting and transmitting the muslins and other nianu- 



* It would appear from a letter addressed to liiin by Mr Watt junior, 

 wbicli is still prfscrvod, that bis fir>t tlestination wa* to Covlon. 



