Digital Victorian Periodical Poetry

Poet, writing in Scots, and activist. Alternative signature: Sarah Robertson Matheson. Born c. 1864 in Dunfermline, Scotland. Daughter of George Robertson. Married Kenneth Matheson junior. Secretary of the Clan Donnachaidh Society, and member of Anti-Slavery and Aborigines’ Protection Society. An advocate for First Nations people in Canada and women’s political rights within the Six Nations community. Contributed to A Brief Account of the Clan Donnachaidh (1894). Chambers’s Journal ledger entry for her poem The Mirk, published on 13 May 1882, refers to her as Miss S. M. Robertson and gives her address as 14 Comely Park, Dunfermline (NLS Dep 341/369). Birth year found in 1891 Scotland Census. Death date listed in England and Wales National Probate Calendar. Biographical information: Publications of the Edinburgh Bibliographical Society, vol. 5, 1910, p. 210; Yellow Nineties Online; N. M. Forestell and M. Moynagh (eds.), Documenting First Wave Feminisms: Volume II Canada - National and Transnational Contexts, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2014), p. 183. (AC, CC, NM, TNT)