ROBINSON, George Richard (?1781-1850), of 5 John Street, Adelphi and Dorset Cottage, Fulham, Mdx.

Robinson, an ‘opulent’ East India proprietor, shipowner and prominent Newfoundland merchant, with a ‘sallow’ complexion and ‘tendency to corpulency’, had sat for Worcester as an ‘independent’ since 1826, quickly acquiring a reputation for laborious speeches on taxes and tariffs, colonial affairs and maritime issues. A general supporter of the Grey ministry’s reform bill (though not of their foreign or commercial policy), at the 1832 general election he stood for re-election, citing his support for the campaign to preserve the electoral rights of freemen and prevent alterations to the historic boundaries of ancient boroughs. Attempts to get up a Tory challenge foundered and he was returned unopposed.1Worcester Jnl., 10 June 1826; HP Commons,1820-32, vi. 996-1001; J. Grant, Random Recollections of the House of Commons (1836), 163-4; The Times, 7, 12 Dec. 1832.

The reformed House proved increasingly intolerant of his prolixity, particularly on his annual motion for replacing all taxes with a property tax. To Raikes’s surprise this ‘still found 155 adherents’, 26 Mar. 1833, but in subsequent years it invariably emptied the chamber, rendering any division inquorate.2Raikes Jnl., i. 175. As the parliamentary reporter James Grant observed in 1836:

He is not an attractive speaker; his matter is heavy, and his manner wants animation. He does not command much attention in the House. When he brings forward the question of a property tax, he has generally to address himself to empty benches ... His speeches on these occasions usually last two or three hours in the delivery [and] ... are never regaled with the sweet music of a cheer.3Grant, Random Recollections, 163-4.

In a slightly more generous vein the Tory diarist Lord Ellenborough, after hearing him criticise the government’s ambiguous ‘neutrality’ towards Dom Miguel’s Portugal, 6 June 1833, noted, ‘Robinson made a good speech, if he had known when to stop and had only said a thing once’.4Three Diaries, 337. In an episode indicative of his own attitude to Commons’ oratory that July, Robinson unsuccessfully implored Daniel O’Connell, who was embroiled in a row with the press, not to enforce the orders of the House and close the public gallery during a debate, as ‘it was important for the humblest Member ... to have his sentiments reported, with reference to his constituents, and to enable him to justify the course which he pursued’.5Hansard, 29 July 1834, vol. 20, c. 70. Robinson’s inability to resist making speeches when bringing up petitions (a practice banned in 1835) earnt him a reprimand from the Speaker the following year.6See, for example, Hansard, 5 May 1836, vol. 33 c. 611. For further details of this procedural change see P. Salmon, ‘The House of Commons, 1801-1911’ in A Short History of Parliament (2009), ed. C. Jones, 257-8.

Most contemporary accounts list Robinson as a Liberal in 1832 and a Conservative (or Liberal-Conservative) fifteen years later.7McCalmont’s Parliamentary Pollbook, 239, 326; Dod’s Electoral Facts, 253, 352; Dod’s Parliamentary Companion (1847), 227-8. However, he quickly resumed his independent course, extolling the virtues of being ‘perhaps the least connected with party of any man in that House’, 9 May 1834, and was not above changing his mind on the same issue, as his shifting stances for and against repeal of the malt duty between 1833-35 indicate.8Parliamentary Testbook (1835), 137. More recent scholarship has classified him as a Radical, a free trade Conservative, and a Peelite, none of which, although germane, captures his complexity.9I. Newbould, Whiggery and Reform, 1830-41 (1990), 173; J. Connacher, The Peelites and the Party System (1972), 224; HP Commons,1820-32, vi. 1000. Elected by ballot as chairman of Lloyd’s (securing 403 votes to his rival’s 136), 21 Jan. 1834, he continued to campaign vociferously on behalf of the shipping industry, whose ‘distress’ he judged ‘equal or greater’ to that facing agriculture, 21 Feb. 1834.10The Times, 22 Jan. 1834; Hansard, 21 Feb. 1834, vol. 21 c. 682. He also came regularly to the defence of manufacturing and business interests, believing that ‘the majority of noble and honorable individuals connected with the government ... had an aristocratic contempt for commercial pursuits, and those attached to them, and therefore ... they remained unattended to’.11Hansard, 9 May 1834, vol. 23 c. 787. He continued to harass ministers on Canada, especially issues relating to disputed fishing rights off the coast of Newfoundland and the activities of the French separatist Louis Papinueau in Lower Canada, but it was the ‘most objectionable’ poor law amendment bill which prompted his first major rift with the Whigs in 1834. Although ‘he was well aware how little importance would be attached to his opinion’, he entreated ministers not to proceed with a measure that ‘seemed to treat poverty as a crime’ and ‘before a proper and full investigation’ into the ‘frightful extent of pauperism that at present prevailed throughout the country’, which he contended could be solved by a ‘relief from taxation’.12Hansard, 14 May 1834, vol. 23 c. 962; 9 June 1834, vol. 24 c. 329. He campaigned and voted steadily against the bill in all its stages, often abetting the Radical William Cobbett, and on 18 June 1834 secured a concession removing the proposed liability of parents for the bastards of their daughters, although he was unsuccessful in his bid to preserve paternal liability for illegitimate children.13Hansard, 18 June 1834, vol. 24 cc. 520-43.

At the 1835 general election Robinson offered again for Worcester as a supporter of ‘church and corporation reforms’, promising to support the incoming Peel ministry ‘when their measures are good, and oppose them when they are otherwise’, although its membership gave him ‘no confidence in them as an administration’. 14Parliamentary Testbook (1835), 137. He far outpolled his nearest rival. Listed by Lord Stanley as one of the 38 members of his ill-fated ‘Derby Dilly’, or ‘neutral party’, he voted with them in the ministerial minority on the speakership and against the Whig opposition’s ‘factious’ amendment to the address, explaining that ministers deserved a ‘fair trial’ and that he had ‘always been independent of party’, although he regretted that Peel had not committed himself to municipal reform, 25 Feb. 1835.15R. Stewart, The Foundation of the Conservative Party, 1830-67 (1976), 376; Grant, Random Recollections, 152; Hansard, 25 Feb. 1835, vol. 26 cc. 243-251. He then rallied to the Whigs on Irish church appropriation, the issue that forced Peel’s resignation in April, only to become one of the fiercest critics of the Whig ministry’s municipal reform bill later that summer, for its ‘indirect’ attack on the ‘inchoate’ voting rights and privileges of freemen. None of his own amendments to prevent this were successful, but the Tory-dominated Lords subsequently implemented similar alterations.16Hansard, 23 June 1835, vol. 28, cc. 1102-3; 24 June 1835, c. 1189.

Throughout 1836 Robinson steadily supported the Whig government’s attempts to improve coastal lighthouses and Trinity docks, as well as their proposals to reform the Irish church and corporations. But he continued to sit ‘on the opposition side of the House’ and remained scathing about the operation of the New Poor Law, especially the ‘revolting’ principle ‘of separating the pauper wife from the husband’ in the workhouse.17Random Recollections (1836), 164; Hansard, 1 Aug. 1836, vol. 35 c. 718-9. His East India maritime officers’ bill, which drew on the findings of his inquiry into the compensation owed by the East India Company to ships’ officers, foundered at its second reading, 22 Mar. 1837, when the House was counted out.18Hansard, 22 Mar. 1837, vol. 37 c. 702-7. But his bill allowing foreign corn to be imported ‘in bond’ for processing and onward export without the payment of import duties, which was intended to benefit shipping and corn manufacturers, secured a second reading by 53-42, 14 June 1837. However, owing to Protectionist protests about it being a first step towards free trade, which he refuted, and the imminence of a dissolution, it failed to get any further, 28 June 1837.19Hansard, 14 June 1837, vol. 38 cc. 1453-7; 28 June 1837, cc. 1676-8.

At the ensuing election Robinson offered again for Worcester and was widely expected to be re-elected without trouble. However, his Tory colleague and the former Liberal Member stole a march on him with their early and ‘active’ canvassing, forcing him to retire before the poll, much to the delight of the Morning Chronicle, which declared:

Mr. Robinson, who has evinced during the last two sessions such an eccentric versatility of voting, and who of late has been recognised as one of the regular passengers in the “Derby Dilly”, has just met with his deserts at Worcester, having been unceremoniously kicked out ... by Colonel Davis, whose Liberal principles are well known. The prospects of the ‘Dilly Men’ in all quarters are equally discouraging.20Leeds Mercury, 1, 22 July 1837; Morning Chron.,. 24 July 1837.

The ‘trimmer’, observed another Liberal paper, ‘has given place to the staunch Liberal’.21Bradford Observer, 27 July 1837. His removal from the House coincided with a ‘critical moment’ at Lloyds, where his ‘cool and almost faultless judgement’ in overseeing reforms to underwriting and the rebuilding of the Royal Exchange after a fire in 1838, ‘helped the subscribers to turn disaster into something like triumph’.22D. Gibb, Lloyd’s of London: a study in individualism (1957), 102, 315. Having declined ‘to stand for several other boroughs’, Robinson ‘at length yielded’ to ‘pressing requests’ from the Conservatives of Tower Hamlets to come forward in 1841. But after insisting on the hustings that ‘during the whole course of his life he never had put on the livery of party and never would’, and denouncing the ‘humbug’ of free trade, which had ‘ruined the glovers of Worcester’, he was soundly beaten into third place behind two free-trade Liberals.23The Times, 1, 2, 3 July 1841. His mercantile and family connections eventually helped him to secure a seat as a ‘Liberal-Conservative’ for the venal borough of Poole in 1847, evidently with considerable outlay.24Lady Charlotte Guest (1950), ed. earl of Bessborough, 195; Examiner, 17 July 1847; Morning Chron., 3 Aug. 1847.

Robinson was less active in his final Parliament, but when present resumed his old habits. After an initial flurry of support for the Russell ministry, he voted with the Derbyites in a number of key divisions, although on religious issues, such as the removal of Jewish disabilities, he remained a reformer.25J. Conacher, The Peelites and the party system (1972), 224. A staunch Protectionist, he campaigned steadily against any reduction of the sugar duties, believing they would damage ‘supplies from our own colonies’ and in the longer-term keep prices ‘quite as high’, 3 July 1848. The bulk of his still extremely lengthy speeches, however, were directed against repeal of the navigation laws, which he warned would not only ‘affect very injuriously the shipping interest of this country’, but also all those engaged in other branches of commerce, ‘causing hundreds of thousands to be added to the mass of pauperism’, 1 June 1848. Denouncing repeal as ‘deluded’ and driven by the dogma of free trade, 23 Apr. 1849, he asked, ‘Was it wise ... to sacrifice our own colonial and intercolonial trade, of which we were the masters, which was under our control, in the vain hope of making this country, what she could never be, the great workshop of the world?’26Hansard, 23 Apr. 1849, vol. 104, cc. 632-40. This was his last known speech. By now he was clearly in ‘declining health’, and although he voted against ministers on the supplies later that session, he was conspicuously absent from the following year’s division lists, even on matters close to his heart.27Liverpool Mercury, 30 Aug. 1850. He died in August 1850, ‘aged 69’, leaving the proceeds from the sale of his Newfoundland interests to Louisa Matilda Peillon, his ‘natural or reputed daughter, the wife of Lazuard Peillon, now or late living in or near Paris’, and her children. In accordance with his wishes he was buried in the family vault at Poole.28Gent. Mag. (1850), ii. 551; Death duty registers, IR26/1943/642. His ‘memory’, it has been suggested, ‘has not been honoured at Lloyd’s in proportion to his deserts’.29Gibb, Lloyd’s of London, 102.