The Letters of James and Ellen Robb: Portrait of a Fredericton Family in Early Victorian Times

Stewart D. Gill was with Presbyterian Theological Hall in Melbourne, Australia.

This collection of letters written by James and Ellen Robb in the period 1837 to 1964 gives an enlightening insight into the life of a middle-class Scottish immigrant in mid-nineteenth century New Brunswick (and, in particular, Fredericton) society. James Robb, born in Laurencekirk (not Laurence Kirk as the editor, Alfred G. Bailey, writes in the introduction) in 1815, studied at the Universities of St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and the Sorbonne in France. In 1837 Robb accepted a position to lecture in science in Fredericton and found himself thrown into a milieu of learning and culture, or at least as much as a provincial capital could provide.

Robb’s early letters, before his marriage in 1840, deal mostly with money matters, his scientific travels, people he encounters, and requests for books and scientific equipment. Initially he appears to have felt isolated from the cutting edge of scientific thought, and he was on the whole pessimistic about prospects for immigrants in New Brunswick. He wrote in 1839: “One of the maxims I have learned from my travelling is that nobody who can help it ought ever to leave Britain if they have any relish for solid comfort and satisfaction” (p.29). The letters continue in a similar vein after his marriage, with the exception that there is an obvious change in attitude on the part of James, who is now more contented with his position.

The volume also contains James Robb’s Encaenial Address of 1839 to the Chancellor, President, and members of the council of Kings College, and a very useful Glossary of Names by Professor D.M. and Dr. Mary Young, with biographical notes on the principal characters mentioned in the text.

The editor and the publishers, the University of New Brunswick and Acadiensis Press, are to be commended for providing this worthwhile addition to the social history of the Maritimes.