ROBINSON, THOMAS (d. 1747), legal author, son of Mathew Robinson of Edgley, Yorkshire, was admitted on 14 April 1730 of Lincoln's Inn, but was never called to the bar. He died on 28 Dec. 1747.
Robinson was author of ‘The Common Law of Kent, or the Customs of Gavelkind; with an appendix concerning Borough English,’ London, 1741, 8vo—a work which concentrates much antiquarian learning in very small compass, and may almost rank as authoritative. A third edition, by John Wilson of Lincoln's Inn, appeared at London in 1822, 8vo; and a new edition, by J. D. Norwood, solicitor, at Ashford in 1858, 8vo.
[Lincoln's Inn Reg.; Gent. Mag. 1747, p. 592; London Mag. 1747, p. 616; Athenæum, 1859, i. 710.]
ROBINSON, THOMAS, first Baron Grantham (1695–1770), diplomatist, born in 1695, was fourth son of Sir William Robinson, bart., of Newby, Yorkshire, and Mary, eldest daughter of George Aislabie of Studley Royal in the same county. The family was descended from William Robinson (1522–1616), an ‘eminent Hamburg merchant,’ who was mayor of York and its representative in parliament in the reign of Elizabeth. The mayor's grandson, of the same name, was knighted in 1633, became high sheriff of Yorkshire in 1638, and died in 1658. The latter's son by his second wife, Metcalfe Robinson (d. 1689), was created a baronet on 30 July 1660. Sir Metcalfe's nephew, William Robinson (1655–1736), succeeded to his estates. He sat for Northallerton in the Convention parliament, and from 1697 to 1722 represented York. In 1689 he was high sheriff of Yorkshire, and in 1700 lord mayor of York. The baronetcy, which had lapsed at his uncle's death, was revived in him. He died at Newby, Yorkshire, on 22 Dec. 1736, and was buried at Topcliffe. He had five sons and a daughter. The second son, Sir Tancred (d. 1754), third baronet, became rear-admiral of the white, and was lord mayor of York in 1718 and 1738.
Thomas, the youngest son, was educated at Westminster, and was admitted on 12 Jan. 1711–12 at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was elected scholar in April 1714, and minor fellow on 10 July 1719. Entering the diplomatic service, he became in 1723 secretary to the English embassy at Paris. During the absence of the ambassador, Horace Walpole the elder, in 1724 and 1727, he acted as chargé d'affaires, and acquired the confidence both of his chief and of Fleury, the French minister (Coxe, Memoirs of Sir R. Walpole, ii. 544). Robinson was always attached to the Walpoles, and on 9 March 1742, after Sir Robert's fall, he sent Horace ‘the warmest professions of friendship, service, and devotion,’ adding that his letters to him were to be looked upon as letters to Sir Robert (ib. iii. 596–7).
In 1728–9 Robinson was one of the three English representatives at the congress of Soissons. On 17 June 1730 he arrived at Vienna in order to act for the ambassador, Lord Waldegrave, while on leave. But Waldegrave did not return, and Robinson remained as English ambassador at Vienna for eighteen years. The object of English policy at the time was to re-establish friendly relations with the emperor without disturbing the existing arrangements with France and the Dutch. Robinson's task was complicated by his having to take into account the interests of George II as elector of Hanover. On 8 Feb. 1731 he was privately instructed to sign the treaty of Vienna, and to leave the German points for future consideration. The ‘thrice salutary’ treaty was accordingly completed on 16 March 1731 (ib. iii. 97; cf. Carlyle, Frederick, iii. 36–7, 168; Marchmont Papers, i. 62). The imperialists complained that he had ‘sucked them to the very blood.’ His exertions threw him into a fever (Coxe, Walpole, iii. 99, 100). On 10 April Harrington forwarded to him 1,000l. from George II, accompanied with emphatically expressed approval of his conduct. He was to have his choice of staying at Vienna with increased emoluments, or of taking any other post that should be more agreeable to him (ib. iii. 101). Robinson petitioned for recall. Nevertheless he was kept at Vienna, ‘for the most part without instructions’ (to H. Pelham, 29 July and 30 Sept. 1733). In the matter of the projected match between Don Carlos and the second daughter of the Emperor Charles VI, Robinson, acting on George II's private instructions, resisted the union. According to Sir Robert Walpole, he was the great obstacle to the match, and ‘deserved hanging for his conduct in that affair’ (Lord Hervey, Memoirs, ii. 104–6).
The accessions of Maria Theresa and Frederick the Great in 1740 completed the change in the European system which the conclusion of the family compact had begun. Robinson had now to remind Maria Theresa of the services received by her father from England in the Spanish succession war, with a view to an alliance against France, while he had also the unpleasant task of urging upon her the necessity of making concessions to Prussia (cf. Coxe, House of Austria, ii. 238–240). Under stress of the recently formed
