| Description Of Item | Oil on canvas, 127 x 101.6 cm
Born in Simla, George Matthew Robertson was the son of Colonel John Robertson, CIE. He was educated at Madras College and St Andrews, graduating with a MB ChB from Edinburgh in 1855.
He was awarded an MD with a Gold Medal in 1913. His interest in psychiatry was stimulated by a junior appointment to the Edinburgh Asylum for the Insane. In 1892 he was appointed physician in charge of Perth District Asylum at Murthly where, viewing with dissatisfaction the nursing and general care of the insane, he formulated the idea of 'hospitalisation of asylums' and introduced the villa system of housing patients. This was adopted when Bangour Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases was built. His next appointment was to Stirling and District Asylum at Larbert, and there he successfully introduced the care of male patients by female nurses. When Edinburgh University established the first chair of Psychiatry in the United Kingdom, Dr Robertson was appointed.
Artist: Herbert James Gunn |