George Matthew Robertson

George Matthew Robertson (1864–1932) was a Scottish physician with an interest in psychiatry.

Life

George M. Robertson was born in Simla to Colonel John Robertson, C.I.E. of the Indian Army. He received his early education at Madras College and St. Andrews before studying medicine at Edinburgh University where he graduated M.B., Ch.B. in 1885. Robertson then became resident physician at the Royal Infirmary before he subsequently took up the study of mental diseases as assistant physician under Dr. T.S. Clouston at Morningside Asylum.

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. Robertson pioneered innovations in asylums and housing for the mentally ill.

His next appointment was to Stirling and District Asylum at Larbert, and there he successfully introduced the care of male patients by female nurses. In 1910, Sir Thomas Clouston retired and Robertson became the physician-superintendent of the Royal Morningside Asylum for the Insane, or as it was later named, the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Mental and Nervous Disorders. Robertson was also a lecturer at Edinburgh University on mental diseases. Robertson became the first Chair of Psychiatry at Edinburgh University.

Robertson joined the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh as a Member in 1891 and became a Fellow two years later.

He received a gold medal for his M.D. thesis in 1913.

George M. Robertson was President of the RCPE from 1925–27. He won the Cullen Prize in 1930 and delivered the Morison Lecture in 1927.

Awards and honours

St Andrews University honoured him with LL.D and he became an honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh in 1927.