William Robertson (Irish priest)

On its rejection, the petitioners went in a body on 1 March to Montgomery's house, when Robertson read a protest against his authority.

He went to London for redress, applying himself to John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll, who referred him to his younger brother, Archibald, Earl of Islay.

Islay obtained a royal commission (appointed 31 August 1726), which visited the university of Glasgow, rescinded (4 October 1726) the act expelling Robertson, restored the students' right of electing the rector, and recovered the right of the university to nominate the Snell exhibitioners at Balliol College, Oxford.

Robertson prepared to take Anglican orders, attending some Gresham College lectures, and read in public libraries.

Robertson was ordained deacon by John Hoadly on 14 January 1728, and appointed curate of Tullow, County Carlow.

In October 1759 Robertson came across Free and Candid Disquisitions published anonymously in 1749 by John Jones; after reading it he felt that he could not renew his declaration of assent and consent to the contents of the Book of Common Prayer.

In April 1778 he agreed to become Lindsey's colleague at Essex Street Chapel, London, and had begun preparations to move from Wolverhampton.

He describes himself as "a presbyter of the church of England", says nothing of his resignation but only of his refusal of further preferment, and propounds the plan of a comprehensive establishment, based on a subscription to the Bible only, and with a service book silent on all controverted points.

John Disney assigned to him Eleutheria, 1768, a poem dedicated to Catharine Macaulay, and stated that in 1767–8 he contributed to the Monthly Review.

Robertson married, in 1728, Elizabeth (d. 1758), daughter of Major William Baxter, and had twenty-one children, but survived them all, leaving only a grandson.