British chemist (1886–1975)

Robinson's father was a manufacturer of surgical dressings and one of the inventors of cotton wool. Robinson, who was born at Chesterfield in Derbyshire, was educated at the University of Manchester where he obtained a DSc in 1910. From 1912 to 1930 Robinson held chairs in organic chemistry successively at Sydney (1912–15), Liverpool (1915–20), St. Andrews (1921–22), Manchester (1922–28), and University College, London (1928–30). In 1930 he was appointed to the chair of chemistry at Oxford, a post he occupied until his retirement in 1955.

Early in his career, while working with William Perkin Jr. at Manchester, Robinson became interested in the natural dyes brazilin and hematoxylin. Important advances were achieved in understanding the chemistry of these compounds and their derivatives, which eventually led to his syntheses of anthocyanins and flavones, important plant pigments. Robinson also worked on the physiologically active alkaloids and established the structure of morphine (1925) and strychnine (1946). For his “investigations of plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids” Robinson was awarded the 1947 Nobel Prize for chemistry.

From 1945 to 1950, Robinson served as president of the Royal Society.

Sir John Beverley Robinson (1791-1863) was a leading member of the Family Compact and of the Tory party of Upper Canada and chief justice of Upper Canada for 33 years.

John Beverley Robinson was born on July 26, 1791, at Berthier in Lower Canada. He was the second son of the American loyalist Christopher Robinson and was educated for some years at Kingston and Cornwall under the tutelage of John Strachan, the future bishop of Toronto. Beginning in October 1807, Robinson read law for 3 years in the office of D'Arcy Boulton, then the solicitor general of Upper Canada.

In 1812 Robinson received a commission under Gen. Sir Isaac Brock and was present at the capture of Ft. Detroit and at the battle at Queenston, where Brock lost his life. From late 1812 until the end of the war in 1815, Robinson was the acting attorney general of Upper Canada, and for much of this period he was the only crown officer in the province. On Feb. 6, 1815, he became the solicitor general, and in September he sailed for England to study law in Lincoln's Inn and to qualify for admission to the English bar.

Robinson returned to Canada late in 1817 and was appointed attorney general on Feb. 11, 1818. In 1821 he entered actively upon a political career, being elected to the Legislative Assembly for York. He was appointed to the Legislative Council as well and from 1828 to 1840 was its speaker. Robinson had, by the mid-1820s, become one of the leaders of the Tory party and a prominent member of the Family Compact, an early Canadian power elite. On July 13, 1829, he was appointed the chief justice of Upper Canada and held this office until 1862.

Robinson opposed the union of the two provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and in 1840 he published a book on the issue entitled Canada and the Canada Bill. Nevertheless he continued to hold the office of chief justice in the new union until, in 1862, he was appointed the first president of the Court of Error and Appeal. In 1853 he was elected chancellor of the University of Trinity College in Toronto and in 1854 was made a baronet.

Though often given to defending the status quo in political and social matters, Robinson acted in most cases with logic and common sense. A man of presence and of marked ability, he served the people of the colony ably for many years. He died at his home, Beverley House, in Toronto on Jan. 31, 1863.

Further Reading

The major biography of Robinson was written by his son, Charles W. Robinson, The Life of Sir John Beverley Robinson, Bart. (1904), which, although uncritical, contains valuable passages from many of Robinson's letters and journal entries. D. B. Read, Lives of the Judges (1888), is useful. For the earlier period of Robinson's life, Gerald M. Craig, Upper Canada: The Formative Years, 1784-1841 (1966), offers a recent interpretation.

1791–1863, Canadian jurist, b. Lower Canada (Quebec). After holding many important offices, he entered upon his long career (1829–62) as chief justice of Upper Canada; in this period he was also briefly president of the executive council and was speaker of the legislative council (1830–41). A man of great ability and integrity, he was, as a leading member of the unpopular and conservative Family Compact group, an opponent of the union (1841) of Upper and Lower Canada and of the Reform party in its efforts to secure responsible representative government. He was created baronet in 1854.

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