Patrick Richardson (1774–1826)

(1774–1824)

John Ruskinʼs uncle by marriage to Janet (“Jessie”) Richardson, sister of John James Ruskin. The family lived in Perth, Scotland. Patrick died on 20 July 1824, when the Ruskinsʼ journeys to Perth were a nearly annual feature of Ruskinʼs boyhood (see Tours of 1822–24; Tours of 1826–27; for Patrickʼs life dates, see Viljoen, Ruskinʼs Scottish Heritage, 182, 185).
Patrickʼs profession, tanning, was among the trades on the move in Perth, a self‐styled progressive and modernizing city. Allegedly, Patrick was boastful and exaggerated his wealth, however; and according to a canceled passage of Praeterita, his death in 1824 left his wife and children with only “a moderate independence, and six children, with whom, leaving the large house and river‐bank garden of Bridge End, she crossed the Tay to Rose Terrace” (Ruskin, Works, 35:409; see Viljoen, Ruskinʼs Scottish Heritage, 73–74). The impression of Patrickʼs extravagance is confirmed by John Jamesʼs household accounts, which document his financial support to Jessie and her children after Patrickʼs death (John James Ruskin, Account Book [1827–45]). Van Akin Burd finds that, in 1818, Patrick paid only the interest on the purchase of the Bridge End house, which in April 1826 was transferred to the trustees of the estate and sold the following month (Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 101 n. 3).