Background
Edith Anne Stewart was the daughter of a United Free Church of Scotland minister, born in Glasgow in 1883.
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Edith Robertson
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Her family lived in Germany and in Surrey, England, during her childhood. They moved to Aberdeen, where James obtained a position as Professor of New Testament Language, Literature and Theology at the United Free Church College in Aberdeen. He wrote a number of well-received works on the New Testament, and was said to have been an effective preacher.
In 1938 James was appointed Professor of Biblical Criticism at the University of Aberdeen.
He remained there until he was forced to retire in 1945 due to poor health. James Alexander Robertson died in 1955.
Edith lived on for almost twenty years. Gin I"m a livan tongue loe me;
Saebins we"ll hae mair bairns;
Gin I"m a deid tongue nae call for keenin,
Ye"ll find me wi the gods
Ayont the Reaveries o Time:
Yon are the gowden tongues! In 1953 Douglas Young wrote to Edith Anne Robertson of her Voices that it was "a truly astonishing challenge to those who think the Lallans incapable of conveying thought (as East Muir incautiously maintained in "Scott and Scotland") and incapable of expressing subtleties of feeling (as MacCraig too often assents).
Moreover it does fill the gap I emphasised (in my Nelson anthology), when I remarked on the comparative lack of mystical verse in Scots." A critic wrote in the Scottish international Review that "in verse, Edith Anne Robertson used a supple and graceful Scots, carrying a large vocabulary with apparent ease in well-varied metres.".
