It produces the "Golden Shred" marmalade, a recipe created in 1874 and registered as a trademark in 1886, among other products including "Silver Shred" a lemon marmalade launched in 1909; "Mincemeat", a traditional Scottish style mincemeat made from raisins, peel, sugar and beef suet; and "Bramble Jelly", a traditional Scottish style jam, strained of its seeds.

During a long down turn in the silk trade, in 1847 Robertson's parents decided to apprentice him to a local grocer, Gibson & Craig, wine spirit and tea merchants at 107 High Street in Paisley.

They rented factory space at Thrushgrove and the resultant clear and tangy marmalade was branded as "Golden Shred"; it became a commercial success.

In 1880 Robertson bought land at Stevenson Street in Paisley and built a three-storey, custom-made marmalade factory.

The couple had developed a method to remove the bitterness of the orange, while retaining what Robertson called "the highly tonic value of the fruit".

In 1891 the company built a second English-based factory to meet southern demand, at Droylsden, Manchester, run by James' second son William.

The famous Robertson's Golliwog symbol (not seen as racially charged at the time) appeared in 1910 after a trip to the US to set up a plant in Boston.

He had been a member of the council, a magistrate, a school director, and the manager of a savings bank, as well as belonging to a variety of philanthropic societies.

[11] Shortly after the takeover in 2007, owner Premier Foods announced the closure of the factories in both Ledbury and Droylsden by the end of the year, with the group's UK jam production all concentrated on Hartley's plant at Histon, Cambridgeshire.

[3] The Droylsden factory was demolished in 2010 and only the small building which housed the electricity mains transformer remains on an otherwise derelict site.

[3][12] In 2012, Premier Foods sold its sweet spreads and jellies business to US multi-national Hain Celestial Group for £200 million.

[14] Intrigued by the popularity of the "Golly", he thought it would make an ideal mascot and trade mark for the Robertson's range of products.

[3] Developed as a brooch-based collector series, by the early 1930s the Golly had appeared in little fruit designs, many of which were worn as jewellery because of their high quality.

[17] The golliwog has been described by the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia as "the least known of the major anti-Black caricatures in the United States".

[3] The brand director at Robertson's commented: We are retiring Golly because we found families with kids no longer necessarily knew about him.