Robert Patterson (1750-1831)

Owner of a mill-furnishing business in Belfast established in 1786

The Pattersons were of Scottish Plantation stock, who settled around Coleraine in the first decade of the 17th century, and it was this Robert Patterson (1750-1831), who set up a mill furnishing business in Belfast in 1786, who was the springboard for a century of naturalists in the family.

His eldest son, Robert Patterson (1802-1872), being the first to achieve acclaim as a naturalist. He was educated, as were most of his generation, first at the Belfast Academy under the direction of the great Dr Bryce. and then at the Belfast Academical Institution, where he was one of the first pupils, and from where he won a prize for an essay on Lough Neagh.