A lawyer, diarist, author, journalist, essayist, reviewer, translator, man of letters, prolific scribe of ‘informal’ texts, and profound thinker, Henry Crabb Robinson was quite a wordsmith. Restless, independent, with a lively, inquiring mind, Robinson is distinguished for becoming the first war correspondent. But perhaps his greatest legacy is his huge collection of diaries which tell so much about the people he met and the times in which they lived.
Robinson was born in Bury St Edmunds on May 13, 1775, the third and youngest son of Henry Robinson (1736-1815) and Jemima Robinson née Crabb (1736-93), who was the daughter of a Congregational deacon from Wattisfield, landowner and maltster, and father of 15 children. Jemima’s brother was the Dickensian-sounding Habakkuk Crabb (1750-94), a dissenting minister. The family home was in Southgate Street where a plaque announces ‘Crabb Robinson, diarist, born 1775, died 1867’.
Robinson was educated at small private schools, so it seems the family was reasonably well off. Aged 15, he was articled to a Colchester attorney for five years between and it was here that he heard one of the last sermons by John Wesley, the great itinerant, open-air Methodist preacher. In 1796 Robinson joined a London firm of solicitors and his future career was seemingly mapped out. However, the year 1798 changed everything when one of his relatives died leaving Robinson a substantial legacy, guaranteeing a more than healthy annual income. Suddenly, he was free to do what he liked, rather than what he ought.
The newly liberated Robinson eagerly spread his wings, travelling and taking advantage of his independence. From 1800, Robinson spent five years studying at German universities, including the University of Jena, forming friendships with outstanding German writers of the time, including the influential Goethe and Schiller. Returning to England, he spread the word about the excellence of German literature and philosophy. Robinson became the first war correspondent when, working as a foreign correspondent for The Times in Spain from 1807 to 1809 , he was dispatched to cover the Peninsular War being fought by forces mustered by Sir Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington, and those loyal to Napoleon Bonaparte. This titanic struggle for control of Spain and Portugal was Britain’s main land campaign during the Napoleonic Wars and eventually saw the French driven out by the end of 1813. But Robinson wasn't there for the war’s conclusion. He returned England in 1809 and quickly changed direction, quitting journalism for the law.
He was called to the Bar in 1813 and did his stint, including leading the Eastern (Norfolk) Circuit. The circuit court required a judge to travel around a particular area to become familiar with all cases in that region. He retired in 1828, still only in his early 50s and far from idle. A ready and able conversationalist and socialiser, a religious dissenter and liberal, a man with acknowledged abilities, Robinson was in demand as a leader among society. He was one of the founders, in 1828, of London University (today’s University College London), and became involved in the anti-slavery campaign. In 1829 he was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries.
Unable to quell his wanderlust, Robinson made his own version of the Grand Tour, visiting Italy several times where he befriended authoress Sarah Burney who hailed from Norfolk. If he wasn’t travelling he was walking - Robinson was an indefatigable walker. His main diary, covering 1811-67, included his travel diaries, as well as writings covering everything from his views on religious dissent and politics - always good for provoking an argument - books and writers, including the outpourings of the so-called ‘Romantics’, the Victorians and what they got up to, the law (of which he was an expert), the theatre (of which he wasn’t), and Europe, particularly Spain and Germany.
Robinson never married. He died in London on February 5, 1867, aged 91, and was buried in Highgate Cemetery next to his old friend Edwin Wilkins Field (1804-71), a descendant of Oliver Cromwell. Robinson was famous enough to have a bust made, and a portrait painted by Londoner Edward Armitage, who was also responsible for the friezes on the Royal Albert Hall. The Unitarian Church played a significant part in Robinson’s life, a dissenting church that believed in a more primitive Christianity than that of the Anglicans. He was a member of the congregation at the Essex Street Chapel and Hall in London, England’s first avowedly Unitarian church, and his diaries were bequeathed to Dr Williams’s Library in London, which always had strong links with the Unitarians.
Robinson's diaries have been described as ‘voluminous’, with as many as 6,000 people mentioned, but they're full of lively biographies of the era’s greats. Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence was published in 1869, after his death. It contains his reflections on leading literary figures - poets William Wordsworth, with whom he’d rambled in Switzerland in 1820, and Samuel Taylor Coleridge; essayist Charles Lamb; mystical poet/painter William Blake; writer William Godwin, father of Frankenstein authoress Mary Shelley; and his personal friend Sarah Burney. There would be later, specific collections of Robinson’s correspondence regarding the Wordsworths & Co (1927), Robinson’s most important social circle outside his own family, Germany (1929), and books and writers in general (1938), all edited by Edith Morley.
