Robert Hogarth Patterson
Robert Hogarth Patterson (1821–1886) was a Scottish journalist and author. Early life. Born in Edinburgh in December 1821, Patterson was educated as a civil engineer at Edinburgh high school. When quite young he started in the printing-office of his cousin, John Ballantyne, as a press corrector. In 1852 he left the printing business to become editor of the "Edinburgh Advertiser". London newspaper editor. In 1858 Patterson moved to London as editor, and later proprietor, of "The Press", owned by Benjamin Disraeli, after the death in 1857 of David Trevena Coulton. George Henry Townsend took it over  from him about 1865. About that year Patterson may have become involved with "The Globe", which he ran at some point with Francis Mahony and E. B. Moran (or E. R. Morgan). A London evening paper, it took a Conservative line. The details, however are not clear. The editors of this period, during the 1860s, of "The Globe" included: Charles Wescomb; Henry Barnett, minister of South Place Chapel; Patterson; and Marbrook Tucker. Later life. Patterson resigned from "The Globe" in 1869, to join a board appointed by parliament to investigate and report on the purification of coal-gas in London . The outcome was a process for the elimination of sulphur and ammonia impurities from gas. In 1872 Patterson went to Glasgow as editor of the "Glasgow News", but his health broke down and he returned to London in 1874. He went on contributing articles, on politics, finance, science, and history, to periodicals. A reputed financial expert, he was consulted by both the Bank of England and the Bank of France on financial and currency questions, and was elected a fellow, and afterwards a member of council, of the Statistical Society. As a financial journalist he belonged to the generation of  Hyde Clarke, David Morier Evans and William Newmarch, who debated abstract finance; their successors were Walter Bagehot, Arthur Crump, Arthur Ellis and Robert Giffen, concerned rather with realistic reporting on the City of London. Patterson died at Hammersmith on 13 December 1886. He had married, in 1848, Georgina, daughter of Captain Thomson of Perth. Works. Patterson was the author of: Patterson was also the author of pamphlets: In early life Patterson contributed articles to "Chambers's Edinburgh Journal"; and later he wrote for the "Quarterly Review", "Blackwood's Magazine", "Bentley's Miscellany", and the "Dublin University Magazine". His essay on  aesthetics "On Real and Ideal Beauty" first appeared in "Blackwood's", and was praised by William Angus Knight; it promoted the theories of David Ramsay Hay. Notes. Attribution