Alongside his brothers, Percy was educated at Charterhouse School, Godalming, where he showed much early promise as an artist, winning the school’s Leech Prize for drawing in 1884 and publishing 23 of his drawings in The Greyfriar, the school’s illustrated journal. He left Charterhouse in the spring of 1885 intent on a career in Art.
In 1887, aged 19 and already exhibiting, Percy Robertson was elected to the Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers (now the Royal Society of Painter-Printmakers). A full fellowship came in 1908 when, three years’ a married man and living in London, he had established a successful career exhibiting frequently at The Royal Academy and with the Royal Society of Etchers.
Further to the award of his fellowship, Robertson finished a major series of approximately 200 views of the Thames from Oxford to Kingston-on-Thames. He is also renowned for his paintings and etchings of Surrey, including such places as Guildford from St Katherine’s Hill (1891), Shere (1899), and Albury (1905).
He died at 11 Sheen Common Drive, Richmond, Surrey on 5 January 1934, aged 69. He and his wife (Edith Helen Nash, who died in 1950) had no children.
