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 with only “a moderate independence, and six children”—that is, six surviving children in
1824, four having already perished—“with whom, leaving the large house and
river‐bank garden of
Bridge End, [
Jessie] crossed the
Tay to
Rose Terrace” on the west bank
(
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
Patrick acquired
Bridge End—a substantial, particoed house—in
1818, but paid only the interest on the purchase.
In
April 1826, the property was transferred to the trustees of the estate and sold the following month
(
Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 101 n. 3).
Rose Terrace on the opposite bank of the
Tay, where
Jessie moved after her husbandʼs death, had remained with the family as their first‐owned domicile—initially leased by
Patrick in
1806,
and then purchased in
1811. Meanwhile, in
1812, the parents of
Jessie Richardson and
John James Ruskin—
Catherine Tweddale Ruskin (
1763–1817) and
John Thomas Ruskin (
1761–1817)—moved to a house in
Perth,
Bowerswell. This house was situated
a short distance from the site of
Bridge End, which
Patrick would acquire six years later.
Bowerswell is a villa on the slopes leading to the
Hill of Kinnoull.
The elder Ruskins moved here from
Edinburgh in order to reduce living expenses. Between the two cities, they sojourned for a time in the seacoast town of
Dysart
(
Burd, ed., Ruskin Family Letters, 26, 48 n. 1, 51 n. 1).