Robert Fenwick was born on 23 March 1831. His first application for admission to John Watson’s Institution in 1837 was unsuccessful. His second application in 1838 provided more information about his case and was successful.

Robert’s father, another Robert, died in November 1834 leaving a widow and three children. He was described as a ‘Painter in Edinburgh’ in the 1837 application; this was upgraded to ‘Master Painter in Edinburgh’ in 1838. His father Edward Fenwick had been a brewer in Newcastle. The older Robert died of ‘Decline’ aged 36 and was buried in South Leith.

Robert’s mother, Mary Smith or Fenwick, also hailed from Newcastle where her father Thomas (or William) Smith had been an innkeeper. The couple married in Edinburgh in 1826.

In 1837, Mary was living at 9 Shakespeare Square, Edinburgh. One of Robert’s brothers, aged 9.5, had a place at the Orphan Hospital. His brother Edward, 11, ‘resides also with his mother but is unable to do any thing for his own support’. Mary attempted to support her sons by dressmaking and, in 1837, keeping ‘a shop for the sale of Smallwares’. She presented a petition to the Directors giving her plan ‘of going into a situation, if her son Robert is admitted to the Hospital’. In 1838, ‘She has been endeavouring to let her house as furnished lodgings, but has been unsuccessful, and is in such distressed circumstances, this she is quite incapable of geting [sic] her Son educated in a Manner suitable for his parentage’.

Robert was admitted in 1838. We next find him with Mary in the 1861 Census at 48 Infirmary Street, Edinburgh. Mary was the head of a boarding house with two lodgers and Robert was working for the Midlothian Railway.

Robert married Dorothy Thomson in Edinburgh on 9 August 1861 ‘to the forms of the Free Church of Scotland’ and giving his profession as ‘Railway Guard’. In the 1871 Census he was at 52 Infirmary Street with Sunderland-born Dorothy and working as a ‘Railway Servant’.

first application

Second Application