William Robertson

At 11pm on Monday the 5th of April 1976, William signed on duty for nightshift at Forth Police Station. He was seen at this time by Constable William Gourlay, who finished at 11 p.m. As usual for this area he worked alone.

At 4.30 a.m. on Tuesday the 6th of April 1976, he called at Lanark Police Office for petrol. He was seen at this time by Constable Peter Robertson and at that time made no complaint of feeling unwell.

At around 7:05 a.m., his wife became concerned when he hadn’t woken her as usual. Unable to reach him by telephone, she looked through the office letterbox and saw him lying face down on the floor.

She alerted his colleagues and Sergeant George Brownlee and Constable Robert Donald who entered the office and found him dead, with facial injuries likely caused by falling. His body position suggested he may have been clutching his chest.

Dr. MacNeish was summoned and attended about 7.45 a.m. that same day and pronounced life extinct. Sergeant Robert Archibald, from Biggar, attended and reported the circumstances to the Procurator Fiscal at Lanark.

A post-mortem concluded that the cause of death was a cerebral haemorrhage linked to hypertension.

William he was married with two daughters, aged 9 and 5 years.

William was born on the 8th of November 1941 at Garrowhill. His father was in the army achieving the rank of Captain in the Royal Artillery. William attended Garrowhill Primary, Abbotsford Primary and Strathbungo Senior Secondary School.

William joined Lanarkshire Constabulary on the 24th of October 1966 as Constable ‘LC’134. He worked initially at Larkhall.

On leaving school he worked as a salesman with the Co-operative store at Morrison Street in Glasgow, before joining the Merchant Navy. On leaving the navy he had several jobs including a mobile Security Officer with Factory Guards Ltd of Claremont St, Glasgow.