Roy Robinson, 1st Baron Robinson

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Sir Roy Lister Robinson, 1st Baron Robinson of Kielder Forest and of Adelaide (1883-1952), forester, was born on 8 March 1883 at Macclesfield, South Australia. He won an exhibition to the Collegiate School of St Peter, Adelaide, in 1896. He entered the School of Mines and Industries in 1900 to study mining engineering, and combined study for its fellowship diploma (passing eleven subjects with distinction in one year) with his course at the University of Adelaide (B.Sc., 1905). He was awarded a Rhodes scholarship in 1905 (the second from South Australia) to Magdalen College, Oxford (B.A., 1908). He obtained first-class honours (1907) in natural science (geology) and the diploma (1908), with distinction, in forestry (under Professor (Sir) William Schlich), also representing the university in cricket, athletics and lacrosse.

In 1909 Robinson was appointed assistant inspector for forestry at the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, London, and laid the foundations of what was to become an unrivalled knowledge of the forests and forestry of Britain.

On 26 November 1910 at St James' Church, Marylebone, London, he married Charlotte Marion Bradshaw.

He was largely responsible for the report which led to the establishment of the Forestry Commission in 1919 and his appointment as its technical commissioner. He became vice-chairman of the commission in 1929, and chairman in 1932, holding that office until he died. He was appointed O.B.E. in 1918, knighted in 1931 and raised to the peerage in 1947.

Robinson was one of the founders of the Society of Foresters of Great Britain and first president and first recipient of its medal (1947) for eminent services to British forestry; an honorary member (1940) of the Society of American Foresters and the Institute of Foresters of Australia; corresponding member (1947) of the Académie d'Agriculture de France; and an honorary LL.D. of the University of Aberdeen.

He died whilst attending a conference in Ottawa on 5 September 1952 of pneumonia; his ashes were scattered in Kielder Forest. His wife and two daughters survived him. A son was killed on active service in 1942.

[edit] Select Bibliography

Empire Forestry Review, 31, 1952;
Forestry (London), 26-27, 1953-54;
Journal of the Historical Society of South Australia, 12, 1984;
Times (London), 11 Sept 1952.
L. T. Carron, 'Robinson, Sir Roy Lister [Baron Robinson] (1883 - 1952)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 11, Melbourne University Press, 1988, p. 427.