J. M. Robertson

John Mackinnon Robertson (1856–1933) was a Scottish journalist, freethinker and politician. Born on the Isle of Arran, he left school at thirteen and educated himself while working as a clerk and then a leader writer in Edinburgh. In London he joined Charles Bradlaugh's National Reformer, succeeded him as editor and became the leading rationalist writer of his generation, with A Short History of Freethought, Christianity and Mythology and Pagan Christs. Elected Liberal member of Parliament for Tyneside in 1906, he served as a junior minister at the Board of Trade. He also wrote at length on Shakespeare, disputing the authorship of many passages.