Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Robinson, Thomas (d.1719)
ROBINSON, THOMAS (d. 1719), writer on natural history, was appointed to the rectory of Ousby, Cumberland, in 1672. After service on Sundays he presided at a kind of club at the village alehouse, where each member spent a sum not exceeding one penny; he was also a warm encourager of village sports, especially football. His leisure he devoted to collecting facts about the mining, minerals, and natural history of the counties of Cumberland and Westmoreland, which he put before the world in a quaint ‘Anatomy of the Earth,’ London, 1694, 4to. This was followed by ‘An Essay towards a Natural History of Westmoreland and Cumberland, to which is annexed a Vindication of the Philosophical and Theological Paraphrase of the Mosaick System of the Creation,’ 2 pts. London, 1709, 8vo; and ‘New Observations on the Natural History of this World, of Matter, and this World of Life… To which is added Some Thoughts concerning Paradise, the Conflagration of the World, and a treatise of Meteorology,’ London, 1698, 8vo (the same, with a different title-page, London, 1699, 8vo). Robinson died rector of Ousby in 1719. He was married, and had eight children.
[Hutchinson's Hist. of Cumberland, i. 224–5; Nicolson and Burn's Hist. of Westmoreland and Cumberland; Jefferson's Hist. of Leath Ward, p. 257; Brit. Mus. Cat.]