together with an Extract of the History of that Kingdom. By a person of note who resided many years there (London, 1695). This was translated into French (Amsterdam, 1712), and in 1738 was published with Viscount Molesworth’s Account of Denmark in 1692. Some of his letters are among the Strafford papers in the British Museum.
A member of the same family was Sir Frederick Philipse Robinson (1763–1852), a Virginian soldier, who fought for England during the American War of Independence. On the conclusion of peace he went to England, and in 1813 and 1814 he commanded a brigade under Wellington in Spain- Afterwards he was governor of Tobago, and he became a general in 1841. He died at Brighton on the 1st of January 1852.
ROBINSON, JOHN (1575–1625), English Nonconformist
divine, was born probably in Lincolnshire or Nottinghamshire about 1575. He seems to have studied at Cambridge, and to have been influenced by William Perkins. He took orders and held a curacy in Norwich, but was attracted by Puritan doctrines, and finally associated himself with a Congregation meeting at Gainsborough (where the “John Robinson Memorial Church” bears witness to his work). In 1606 the members divided into two societies, Robinson becoming
minister of the one which made its headquarters at Scrooby, a neighbouring village. The increasing hostility of the authorities towards nonconformity soon forced him and his people
to think of flight, and, not Without difficulty, they succeeded
in making their escape in detachments to Holland. Robinson settled in Amsterdam in 1608, but in the following year removed, with a large contingent, to Leiden, where he ministered to a community whose numbers gradually grew from one hundred to three hundred. In 1620 a considerable minority of these sailed for England in the “Speedwell,” and ultimately crossed the Atlantic in the “Mayflower”; it was Robinson’s intention to follow as soon as practicable, along with the rest of his flock, but he died before the plan could be carried out, on the 1st of March 1625.
In the early stages of the Arminian controversy he took the Calvinistic side, and even engaged in a public disputation with the famous Episcopius. He bore a high reputation even among his ecclesiastical opponents, and one of them (Robert Baillie) calls him “the most learned, polished and modest spirit that ever that sect enjoyed.” He was large-minded and eminently reasonable in spirit, recognizing parish assemblies where “the pure word and discipline” prevailed as true churches of God. His sound judgment is seen in the way in which he adjusted the relations of elders and church—the most delicate practical problem of Congregationalism.
Amongst his publications may be mentioned Justification of Separation from the Church (1610), Apologia Brownistarum (1619), A Defence of the Doctrine propounded by the Synod of Dort (1624), and a volume of Essays, or Observations Divine and Moral, printed in 1625. His Works (with one exception, A Manumission to a Manduction, since published by the Massachusetts Historical Society, ser. iv., vol. i.), including a memoir, were reprinted by R. Ashton in three vols. in 1851. A summary of their contents is given in G. Punchard, History of Congregationalism (New York, 1867), iii. 300-344. See further Congregationalism, and the literature there cited; also O. S. Davis, John Robinson (Hartford, Connecticut, 1897).
ROBINSON, SIR JOHN BEVERLEY, Bart. (1791–1863), Canadian statesman and jurist, was the son of Christopher Robinson (1764–1798), one of the band known as United Empire Loyalists, who came to Canada at the conclusion of the American Revolution. He was born at Berthier, Quebec, on the 26th of July 1791, and studied under Dr John Strachan, by whom his religious and political ideas were much influenced. He served with distinction at the beginning of the war of 1812, and later in the war was appointed acting attorney-general of Upper Canada. In 1815 he visited England and read law at Lincoln’s Inn.
From 1818 till 1829 he was the head of the Tory party in Upper Canada (the so-called “Family Compact”). In 1829 he became chief justice of Upper Canada, which position he held till shortly before his death on the 31st'of January 1863. Not one of his decisions was ever reversed on appeal. In 1824 and again in 11839 he strongly advocated a federal union of British North America, and in 1839 opposed in Canada and the Canada Bill the legislative union of the two Canadas proposed by Lord Durham. In 1854 he was created a baronet of the United Kingdom and in 1855 a D.C.L. of Oxford University. His unbending Toryism rendered him a reactionary. in politics, but his bitterest opponents admitted his sincerity and patriotism.
Several of his sons rose to eminence, John Beverley Robinson (1820–1896) becoming a member of the Dominion parliament and lieutenant-governor of Ontario (1880–1887). Christopher Robinson (1828–1905) was for many years the acknowledged leader of the Canadian Bar.
His Life, by his son, Major-General C. W. Robinson, C.B. (Toronto and London, 1904), gives a very favourable picture of the fine old colonial gentleman and loyalist. For a less favourable view see J. C. Dent, Canadian Portrait Gallery, vol. iv. (Toronto, 1881).
ROBINSON, JOHN THOMAS ROMNEY (1792–1882), Irish
astronomer and physicist, was born in Dublin on the 23rd of April 1792. He studied at Trinity College, Dublin, and obtained a fellowship in 1814; for some years he was deputy professor of natural philosophy, until in 1821 he obtained the college living of Enniskillen. In 1823 he was appointed astronomer of the Armagh observatory, with which he (from 1824) combined the living of Carrickmacross, but he always resided at the observatory, engaged in researches connected with
astronomy and physics, until his death on the 28th of February 1882.
Robinson published a number of papers in scientific journals, and the Armagh catalogue of stars (Places of 5345 Stars observed from 1828 to 1854 at the Armagh Observatory, Dublin, 1859), but e is best known as the inventor (1846) of the cup-anemometer for registering the velocity of the wind.
ROBINSON, SIR JOSEPH BENJAMIN (1845–), South African mine-owner, was born at Cradock, Cape Colony, in 1845. At the age of sixteen he started business as a general trader, wool-buyer and stock-breeder, but on the discovery of diamonds in South Africa in 1867 he hastened to the Vaal river district, where, by purchasing the stones from the natives
and afterwards by buying diamond-bearing land, notably
at Kimberley, he soon acquired a considerable fortune. He was mayor of Kimberley in 1880, and for four years was a representative of Griqualand West in the Cape parliament. On the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand district in 1886, Robinson purchased the Langlaagte and Randfontein estates. His views as to the westerly trend of the main gold-bearing reef were entirely contrary to the bulk of South African opinion
at the time, but events proved him to be correct, and the enormous appreciation in value of his various properties made him one of the richest men in South Africa. As a Rand capitalist he stood aloof from combinations with other gold-mining interests, and took no part in the Johannesburg reform movement, maintaining friendly relations with President Kruger.
He claimed that it was as the result of his representations after
the Jameson Raid that Kruger appointed the Industrial Commission
of 1897, whose recommendations—had they been
carried out—would have remedied some of the Uitlander
grievances. In 1908 he was created a baronet.
ROBINSON, MARY [“Perdita”] (1758–1800), English actress and author, was born in Bristol on the 27th of November 1758, the daughter of a captain of a whaler named Darby. In 1774 she was married to Thomas Robinson, a clerk in London, where her remarkable beauty brought her many attentions; and when, after two years of fashionable life, her husband was arrested for debt, she shared his imprisonment. She had been a precocious child, encouraged to write verses, and while in King’s Bench prison she completed the collection published in two volumes in 1775. On her release, thanks to Carrick, she secured an engagement at Drury Lane, making a successful first appearance as Juliet in 1776. On the 3rd of December 1779 she was Perdita in Garrick’s version of The Winter’s Tale, and her beauty so captivated George, prince of Wales (afterwards
