ROBINSON Edward (1794-1863), author of the Biblical Researches, a son of the Rev. William Robinson, of Puritan ancestry, was born at Southington, Connecticut, United States, on 10th April 1794. He was educated at Hamilton College, New York, where he graduated in 1816. He served as a tutor at the college during 1817-18, and then engaged in private study of the Greek classics until 1821, when he went to Andover, Massachusetts, in order to publish an edition of the Iliad. There he became a pupil of Moses Stuart, the enthusiastic professor of Biblical studies in the theological seminary, and was made instructor of Hebrew there in 1823. In 1826 he resigned his position at Andover and went to Europe, where he studied Hebreλv under Gesenius at Halle, and also history at Berlin under Neander, remaining in Europe until 1830. In 1828 he married Therese Albertine Luise von Jakob, daughter of an eminent professor of philosophy at Halle. This highly cultured lady was already well known as an authoress under the pseudonym of “Talvj.” She became of great assistance to her husband in his learned pursuits. In 1830 he was again called to Andover as professor extraordinary of Biblical literature, and entered with enthusiasm upon the work of instruction and the publication of scholarly works upon the Bible. In 1831 he founded the Biblical Repository, a theological review which introduced a new era in theological periodicals in America, and which subsequently passed over into the Bibliotheca Sacra. In the same year he received the degree of D.D. from Dartmouth College. In 1832 he published a revised edition of Taylor’s translation of Calmet’s Dictionary of the Bible, and in the ensuing year a popular Dictionary of the Bible and a translation of Buttmann’s Greek Grammar (3d ed., ...1851). Such severe literary work deprived him of his health and he was compelled to resign his professorship. He now devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits for some years. In 1834 he published a revised edition of Newcome’s Greek Harmony of the Gospels. In 1836 he issued a translation of Gesenius’s Hebrew Lexicon and in the same year a Greek and English Lexicon of the New Testament. These lexicons have been the companions of Biblical students until the present time, having passed through a series of revisions. The Hebrew Lexicon reached a fifth edition in 1854, the Greek Lexicon a second edition in 1847. They are both now (1885) passing through another revision by his pupils. In 1837 Robinson was called to the professorship of Biblical literature in the Union Theological Seminary, New York, in which position he remained until his death, giving it the reputation of his scholarship and the benefits of his great experience in Biblical study and practical skill in instruction. In his letter of acceptance he gave an outline of the field of Biblical study which showed his mastery of the subject and his forecast of its future in America. He accepted this position with the understanding that he should receive leave of absence for some years in order to explore the lands of the Bible. He spent a considerable portion of the year 1838 in these explorations and became the pioneer and father of modern Biblical geography. He published his Biblical Researches in 1841 in three volumes, simultaneously in Berlin and Boston. His services were recognized by a gold medal from the Royal Geographical Society of London in 1842, the degree of D.D. from the university of Halle in 1842, and the degree of LL.D. from Yale College in 1844. In 1852 he made a second visit to Palestine and published its results in the supplemental volume to the second edition of his Biblical Researches in 1856. The third edition of the whole work appeared in 1867 in three volumes. Robinson regarded these researches as preliminary to a systematic work on the geography of the Bible; but he was spared only to complete a mere fragment, which was published posthumously under the title of Physical Geography of the Holy Land in 1865. In 1845 Robinson also issued a Greek Harmony of the Gospels and in 1846 an English Harmony, both of which have passed through many editions and have remained the standard text-books in America until the present day. The Greek Harmony has renewed its life in a revised edition by Professor Riddle in 1885. Besides these more important works he published from time to time a vast number of articles in periodicals, and in 1859 a Memoir of the Rev. William Robinson, his father. Robinson was an ordained minister of the Presbyterian Church, but his voice was seldom heard in the pulpit or in ecclesiastical bodies. In his declining years he was afflicted with an incurable disease of the eyes and other maladies. He died in New York City on 27th January 1863.
Robinson’s work in Biblical geography was both fundamental and monumental. Dean Stanley once said, “Dr Robinson was the first man who saw Palestine with his eyes open to what he ought to see”; and Ritter recognizes the “union of the acutest observation of topographical and local conditions with much preparatory study.” He was gifted with great practical sense and unusual accuracy of observation; but hewas extreme in his criticism of the local legends of the Holy Land, and not sufficiently skilled in historic criticism. Although great progress has been made in Biblical geography in the last quarter of this century, yet the work of Robinson is still classical.
See The Life, Writings, and Character of Edward Robinson, by Henry B. Smith and Boswell D. Hitchcock (New York, 1863), and Services in Adam Chapel at the Dedication of the New Buildings of Union Theological Seminary (New York, 1885).
ROBINSON John (1575-1625), one of the founders of Independency in England (see vol. xii. p. 725), was born most probably near Scrooby in Nottinghamshire in 1575. He was entered of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1592, and graduated in ordinary course, becoming a fellow in 1599. Having taken orders he officiated for some time in the neighbourhood of Norwich, but his Puritan leanings soon caused his suspension by the bishop. After having ministered for some time to a congregation of sympathizers in Norwich he resigned his fellowship in 1604, and, proceeding to Gainsborough in Lincolnshire, he there joined a company who had bound themselves by covenant before God “to walk in all His ways made known or to be made known unto them, according to their best endeavours, whatever it should cost them.” In 1606 he became minister at Scrooby, but the increasing hostility of the authorities towards nonconformity soon forced him and his people to think of flight, and, not without difficulty, they succeeded in making their escape in detachments to Hol-land. Robinson settled in Amsterdam in 1608, but in the following year removed to Leyden, and ministered there to members of his former congregation. In 1620 a considerable minority of these sailed for England in the “Speed-well,” and ultimately crossed the Atlantic in the “Mayflower”; it was Robinson’s intention to follow as soon as practicable along with the rest of his flock, but he died before the plan could be carried out, on 1st March 1625.
Besides preaching to his congregation, and, during his later years, corresponding with those of his people who had settled in New England, Robinson devoted himself to theological study, and became a member of the university of Leyden. Amongst his other publications may be mentioned Justification of Separation from the Church (1610), Apologia Brownistarum (1619), A Defence of the Doctrine propounded by the Synod of Dort (1624), and a volume of Essays, or Observations Divine and Moral, printed in 1628. His Works, with a memoir by R. Ashton, were reprinted in 3 vols, in 1851.
ROBINSON John Thomas Romney (1792-1882), the inventor of the cup-anemometer, was born in Dublin on 23d April 1792. He studied at Trinity College and obtained a fellowship in 1814; for some years he was deputy professor of natural philosophy, until he relinquished his fellowship in 1821 on obtaining the college living of Enniskillen. In 1823 he was appointed astronomer of the Armagh observatory (see Observatory), with which he (from 1824) combined the living of Carrickmacross, but he always resided at the observatory, engaged in re-searches connected with astronomy and physics, until his death on 28th February 1882.
Robinson wrote a number of papers in scientific journals and transactions, and the Armagh catalogue of stars ( Places of 5345 Stars observed from 1828 to 1854 at the Armagh Observatory, Dublin, 1859), but he is best known as the inventor of the cup-anemometer for registering the velocity of the wind. This instrument (which he erected at the Armagh observatory in 1846 and which has since come into general use) consists of four light arms forming a horizontal cross, carrying four hemispherical cups and turning freely about a vertical axis. By an endless screw attached to the axis a system of wheelwork is set going, and the velocity of the wind is indicated by one or more dials, or it may be registered continuously by a pencil drawn by clockwork along a dial or drum turned by the anemometer, or (as in the modification now generally used) by a metallic screw of only one thread, which leaves a tracing on a sheet of metallic paper folded round a drum revolving by clockwork. It has been found by elaborate experiments by Dr Robinson ( Trans. R. Irish Academy, vol. xxii.; Phil. Trans., 1878 and 1880) and others that the centre of each cup moves with a velocity very nearly equal to one-third of that of the wind.
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