[1] A graduate of Edinburgh, he is identified by Edgar Cardew Marchant in the Dictionary of National Biography as probably the William Robertson who was laureated by Duncan Forester in April 1645.
In 1680 he was appointed university teacher of Hebrew at Cambridge at a salary of £20 a year.
[2] Robertson believed Hebrew could be learned by ordinary people with a minimum of linguistic background.
In the Interregnum he was supported by patrons such as John Sadler, William Steele and Lady Katherine Ranelagh,[3] and was able to publish freely.
After 1660 he had little support, and lost much of his version of the Hebrew New Testament of Elias Hutter in the Great Fire of London.