[Roy. Irish Acad. Proc. (Min. of Proc., second ser. vol. iii.), 1883, p. 198; Monthly Notices of Roy. Astron. Soc. 1882–3, p. 181 (by Sir Robert Ball); Encycl. Brit. (by J. L. E. Dreyer); Sir Samuel Ferguson in the Ireland of his Day, by Lady Ferguson, 1896 (gives a vivid idea of Robinson's personality); Gent. Mag. 1801 ii. 1124, 1802 i. 61, 252, 1803 i. 454, 1805 i. 63, 359, 653; information kindly supplied by Lady Stokes and J. L. E. Dreyer; see also O'Donoghue's Irish Poets.]
ROBINSON, WILLIAM (1720?–1775), architect, eldest son of William Robinson of St. Giles's, Durham, was born about 1720 at Kepyer, near Durham, came to London, and was on 30 June 1746 appointed clerk of the works to Greenwich Hospital, where he superintended in 1763 the building of the infirmary, designed by James Stuart (1713–1788) [q. v.] Between 1750 and 1775 he assisted Walpole in executing the latter's plans for Strawberry Hill. Simultaneously he was clerk of the works at St. James's, Whitehall, and Westminster, and surveyor to the London board of customs, for whom he designed, between 1770 and 1775, the excise office in Old Broad Street. In 1776 he was secretary to the board of works, an office which he retained until his death. He made a design for rebuilding the Savoy, but this was superseded, on his death, by Sir William Chambers's plan for Somerset House. He died of gout at his residence in Scotland Yard on 10 Oct. 1775, and was buried in the chapel at Greenwich Hospital. His brother Thomas (1727–1810) was master gardener to George III at Kensington, while another brother Robert was an architect in Edinburgh.
A contemporary William Robinson (d. 1768), architect and surveyor of Hackney, was author of two small technical treatises: ‘Proportional Architecture, or the Five Orders regulated by Equal Parts, after so concise a method that renders it useful to all Artists, and Easy to every Capacity’ (with plates, London, 1733, 8vo; 2nd edit. 1736); and ‘The Gentleman and Builder's Director’ (London [1775], 8vo), including directions for fireproof buildings and non-smoking chimneys. The writer is probably to be identified with the W. Robinson, surveyor to the trustees of the Gresham estate committee (appointed in August 1767 to superintend the expenditure of 10,000l. voted by the House of Commons for repairing the Royal Exchange). His death was reported to the committee on 13 Jan. 1768.
[Notes and Queries, 2nd ser. vi. 326, ix. 272; Papworth's Dict. of Architecture; Chambers's Civil Architecture, ed. Gwilt, vol. xlv.; Faulkner's Kensington, 1820, p. 214; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
ROBINSON, WILLIAM (1726?–1803), friend of Thomas Gray, was the fifth son of Matthew Robinson (1694–1778) of West Layton, Yorkshire, by Elizabeth (d. 1746), daughter of Robert Drake of Cambridgeshire, and heiress of the family of Morris. Sarah, wife of George Lewis Scott, and Mrs. Elizabeth Montagu [q. v.] were his sisters. He was born in Cambridgeshire about 1726, and proceeded from Westminster School to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1750, and M.A. in 1754. On 16 March 1752 he was elected to a fellowship of his college, and held it until his marriage. He had a great love of literature, probably implanted in him by his relative, Conyers Middleton, and was an excellent scholar. He married in July 1760, when curate of Kensington, Mary, only surviving daughter of Adam Richardson, a lady, wrote Gray, ‘of his own age and not handsome, with 10,000l. in her pocket.’ Gray, on further acquaintance, called her ‘a very good-humoured, cheerful woman.’ Immediately after the marriage they settled, with an invalid brother of the bride, in Italy, and stayed there over two years, during which time Robinson became a good judge of pictures. On returning to England they dwelt at Denton Court, near Canterbury, and from 23 Nov. 1764 to 1785 Robinson held the rectory of the parish. His father had purchased for him the next presentation to the richer rectory of Burghfield in Berkshire, which he retained from 1768 to 1798. He died there on 8 Dec. 1803, leaving a son and two daughters, with ample fortunes, having inherited largely from his elder brother, Matthew Robinson-Morris, lord Rokeby [q. v.], who died on 30 Nov. 1800. Mary, the younger daughter, became the second wife of Sir Samuel Egerton Brydges, who wrote a cenotaph for the church of Monk's Horton in memory of his father-in-law (Anti-Critic, pp. 199–200).
Gray spent the months of May and June 1766 with the ‘Reverend Billy’ at Denton. At a second visit, in June 1768, Gray was ‘very deep in the study of natural history’ (Letters of Elizabeth Carter to Mrs. Montagu, i. 384). A letter to Robinson is included in the works of Gray, but he did not think Mason equal to the task of writing Gray's life, and he would not communicate any information. Long letters from Mrs. Montagu to Mrs. Robinson are in the ‘Censura Literaria’ (i. 90–4, iii. 136–49), and the correspondence of Mrs. Montagu with her forms the chief part of Dr. Doran's ‘Lady of the Last Century.’ From a passage in that work (p. 241) it appears that
