Career
Atkinson was a native of London. A Lincolnshire yeoman, William Atkinson (d1590), served both Salisbury"s father, William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley, and Salisbury"s brother, Thomas Cecil, 1st Earl of Exeter. After serving an apprenticeship to Francis Tiver, a refiner of gold and silver, he was admitted a finer in the Tower of London about 1586, and subsequently he was engaged in refining silver in Devonshire, from lead brought from Ireland.
He tells us that he was taught his mining skill "by Mr.
B. B., an ingenious gent" (ie Mr, afterwards Sir Bevis Bulmer). That he spent his "golden time" in different shires in England.
And that he was for two years in Ireland with Bulmer, who died in his debt £340, having left him there "much in debt for him."
By a grant of the privy council of Scotland in 1616, confirmed by James I of England, he obtained leave to search for gold and silver in Crawford Muir, on paying the king one-tenth of the metals foundation lieutenant appears that he was unsuccessful in his mining operations, and consequently he wrote The Discoverie and Historie of the Gold Mynes in Scotland.
This was edited by Gilbert Laing Meason for the Bannatyne Club in 1825, from a manuscript in the Advocates" Library, Edinburgh.
Another manuscript is in the Harleian collection, Mississippi. 4621. An Account of a Curious Manuscript Volume of his work was given in David Brewster"s The Edinburgh Journal of Science. Atkinson is often quoted for a story dating back 40 years before his time, during the regency of the Earl of Morton.
He says that three painters, Nicolas Hilliard, Arnold Bronckorst, and Cornelius de Vosse came to Scotland to look for gold.
Arnold was compelled to remain in Scotland and become the court painter. However, although Arnold did become the court painter, Cornelius de Vos was the name of a contemporary mineral prospector who did work in Scotland, and modern art-historians doubt that Hilliard came to Scotland.
Atkinson does speak knowledgeably about the production of painting pigments from minerals.
