| Administrative History | Interest in the mapping of Aberdeen and Banff counties may have commenced around 1790, with a proposal by James Stobie for publishing a map of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire by subscription.
In 1801, at a meeting of the Edinburgh Aberdeenshire Club, Sir William Forbes expressed a need for a survey and map of Aberdeen and Banff to assist in the development of improvements such as roads and bridges in the counties. This idea was given unanimous support and a committee was set up to bring the proposal under the consideration of the county gentlemen (AS/Acom/34/1/5). On 11 October 1806 printed proposals for publishing a map by subscription from a survey by John Ainslie were sent to potential subscribers (AS/Acom/34/1/14). This attempt appears to have been unsuccessful and on 10 August 1809 James Robertson, land surveyor, wrote to Sir William Forbes informing him that he would soon be completing the fieldwork for his survey and map of Northumberland and would be available to survey and map Aberdeenshire and Banffshire, as requested by Sir William Forbes three years earlier on seeing Robertson's topographical survey and map of Jamaica (AS/Acom/34/1/15). Sir William Forbes duly informed the Commissioners of Supply of Aberdeenshire who decided to investigate this proposal further as Alexander Sutherland, land surveyor, whom they had employed to undertake the task had left the country (AS/Acom/34/1/16).
Robertson (1753-1829) was previously a civil engineer in Jamaica who returned to Britain in around 1805. He had attended Marischal College, Aberdeen, from 1806 to 1810, and had surveyed the Shetlands, the Orkneys, Caithness and Northumberland (AS/Acom/34/1/240).
After some deliberation and investigation of the background of James Robertson, work commenced in 1810, and most of the requisite four hundred subscriptions were obtained. However, instead of taking approximately four years to complete his map, James Robertson did not produce the map until 1822, and had in the meantime added Kincardineshire to the map of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire. As a result of this delay, many subscribers had died or left the area leaving subscriptions short of the required four hundred. Thomas Burnett, an advocate in Aberdeen, wrote to James Robertson to express the unanimous disappointment of the Map Committee and subscribers at the delay, and to make it clear that the Map Committee would not be liable for any reduction in the number of subscriptions as a result (AS/Acom/34/1/42).
James Robertson claimed that according to an agreement of September 1810, the Map Committee was to pay him £2,100, the full amount payable for 400 copies of his map, and they were responsible for finding the requisite subscribers. This agreement is not to be found in the collection, though it is mentioned in a minute of a general meeting of landholders, commissioners of supply and justices of the peace in Aberdeen on 7 September 1810 (AS/Acom/34/1/24), and it may be found in the Court of Session records at the National Archives of Scotland.
James Robertson brought his case to court and made a claim for his money against the Marquis of Huntly and others of the Map Committee. The members of the Map Committee defended themselves against the claims of James Robertson by claiming in turn that his map was not produced from a survey of the counties as proposed in his prospectus. To substantiate this claim, a number of lists and reports of inaccuracies and omissions were drawn up in relation to the representation of the three counties. The case continued until 15 January 1829 when James Robertson died, following which an out of court settlement was reached with his executors (AS/Acom/34/1/239).
In 1938 James A. Parker studied the papers, which had now passed to the custody of Aberdeen County Council, and he submitted his notes detailing the case to J.T. Boyd at the Council Offices. In his covering letter he mentions that he is retaining James Robertson's letter of 25 October 1809 (of which he supplies a transcription), and he may have retained further material relating to the collection (AS/Acom/34/1/241). His notes supply further biographical details about James Robertson, and coherent information about the case. |