CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 7 



In the last two years of his time he attended lectures in 

 the University on mathematics, physics, and chemistry, 

 William Thomson, later Lord Kelvin, being among his 

 fellow-students. Later, as engineer, he took part in 

 the enormous development of the railway systems then 

 extending over the whole country. An accident to one 

 of his eyes having made it advisable to change his 

 occupation, he obtained the appointment of Surveyor 

 to the Scottish Union Insurance Company, and with 

 this company he remained connected for nearly fifty 

 years. After his father's death he lived with his mother 

 and tried to take a father's place to his sister and his 

 younger brothers. It was not till he was nearly forty 

 years of age that he felt free to marry a lady to whom 

 he had been virtually engaged for twenty years. 



At the time of the elder William Ramsay's death 

 (1827) one of the leading physicians in Edinburgh was 

 Dr. Archibald Robertson already referred to a man 

 of great charm and ability. His family consisted of 

 five sons and two daughters. The sons were preparing 

 for the medical profession and were very delicate, 

 indeed only one of them lived to take up practice. 

 The consequent anxiety and sorrow made their father 

 neglect his affairs, and when he died, at a comparatively 

 early age, his two daughters found themselves almost 

 unprovided for. The elder who afterwards became the 

 wife of Dr. Jolly, a well-known Scottish theologian, 

 found a post as governess in Dumfriesshire, and though 

 friends offered the younger sister, Catherine, a home, 



