174 Proceedings of Royal Society of Edinburgh. [sess. 
prominent part in the management of numerous public institutions. 
In 1881 he was elected Master of the Merchant Company, in 
succession to Sir James Falshaw. The Merchant Maiden Hospital 
being superiors of the town of Peterhead, he took a leading part 
in the movement, which came to a successful issue, for having a 
national harbour of refuge erected at Peterhead by convict labour. 
He presided over the Edinburgh Chamber of Commerce from 1869 
till 1872, and he was again elected to that position in 1879. As 
Chairman, he was present as the Representative of the Chamber at 
the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. He was Chairman of the 
Edinburgh Literary Institute from 1873 till his death. He died 
on 13th January 1896. 
George Robertson was the eldest son of the late Hon. Hercules 
James Robertson, Lord Benholme, one of the Senators of the 
College of Justice. As an engineer, Mr Robertson carried out the 
construction of Leith Docks, and was well known in connection 
with marine and river engineering. He was admitted a Fellow of 
this Society in 1859, and was a member of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers. He died on 7th February 1896, at the age of 65 years. 
Robert Lawson was born at Kirriemuir. Connected originally 
with journalism, he left that profession, and studied medicine at 
the University of Edinburgh, where he took his degree of M.B. in 
1871 and of M.D. in 1888. He was successively Assistant to the 
Chair of Practice of Medicine, Assistant Medical Officer of the 
West Riding Asylum, Yorkshire, Medical Superintendent of 
Wonford House, a registered hospital for the insane in Devon- 
shire, and in 1878 he was appointed a Deputy Commissioner in 
Lunacy for Scotland. He was a large contributor to medical 
journals, but latterly his writing was confined to his Annual 
Reports to the General Board of Lunacy on the Care of the Insane 
in Private Dwellings. He was a man of refined literary tastes, an 
extensive reader in many departments of literature and science, 
and of a kindly and generous nature. He died on 22nd February 
1896. 
David Cunningham was born in Dundee on the 14th July 
1838. He was educated first at the High School of Dundee and 
afterwards at the Queen Street Institution, Edinburgh, after which 
he served an apprenticeship with Messrs Blyth, Engineers, Edin- 
