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According to the Sydney Sun, he was loved and hated by his troops, respected among his fellow officers as a
leader and military tactician and deeply suspected as a ‘grandstander’.
After retirement, Robertson became commissioner of the State Savings Bank of Victoria and accepted the
colonelcy of the Royal Australian Regiment. His wife, Jessie, nee Bonner, whom he married in 1916, died in 1956.
The couple had no children. Robertson died on 28 April 1960 at Heidelberg, Victoria.
C L A Abbott, Australia’s Frontier Province, 1950; G Long, To Benghazi, 1952; D McCarthy, South West Pacific Area, First Year, 1959;
A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge, 1988; L Wigmore, The Japanese Thrust, 1957; Who’s Who in Australia; R Hopkins, ‘Lieutenant General
Sir Horace Robertson’, in D Horner, The Commanders, 1984; AWM biographical extracts; AWM card index, 1914–18 & 1939–45 war
personnel; Graduation List of Officers, vol 1, 1946.
J HAYDON, Vol 1.
ROBINSON, BESSIE JANET PHILLIS: see JOHNSON, BESSIE JANET PHILLIS
ROBINSON, EMILY CAROLINE: see BARNETT, EMILY CAROLINE
ROBINSON, EDWARD OSWIN (1847–1917), customs officer, trader, buffalo shooter, pastoralist and miner,
was born on 23 May 1847 at Oxford, England, the second son of Charles Wyndham Robinson, tailor and his wife
Anne, nee Harris. He seems to have been well educated, though no details are known. A family legend links his
departure from England to losing a bride to his elder brother.
By 1873, he had reached Australia and was pearling, without success, probably in Western Australia. He then
joined a Melbourne syndicate with two luggers and sailed, via Rockhampton, to Macassar to recruit fresh divers.
After some difficulties, which entailed carrying a cargo of powder to Timor to earn some ready cash, Robinson in
Northern Light eventually reached King Sound and the two luggers enjoyed relatively successful pearling in what
was then a new ground. This ended when the Melbourne secretary of the syndicate absconded with the proceeds
from a batch of pearls and Robinson received two spear wounds in an Aboriginal attack. He came to Palmerston
(Darwin) for medical attention.
He seems to have first visited Port Essington about April 1874 with a group trying unsuccessfully to sail
to Queensland. Later in the year, he took Northern Light around from Palmerston to Port Essington to collect
John Lewis and party who had travelled overland looking for two men, Borradaile and Permien, who had
disappeared in western Arnhem Land. Shortly afterward, he formed a company for trepanging in Port Essington, but
this lasted only six months. In September 1875 he led a party in the vessel Woolner, looking for gold in Blue Mud
Bay. They returned to Palmerston in December richer in experience, but nothing else. Robinson then spent some
time on the goldfields and in 1877 visited Melville Island for the first time. In March 1878, he established a station
on Croker Island with Thomas Howard Wingfield. Their chief purpose was trepanging, and they grew a little
tobacco. When Robinson returned from a trip to Darwin at the end of 1879, he found Wingfield murdered and the
station wrecked. Robinson gave up the project, though it left him with ‘certain liabilities’. One of the non-financial
debts was paid off by bringing the murderer, Wandi Wandi, to trial. In the meantime, Paul Foelsche had engaged
Robinson as manager of the Cobourg Cattle Company’s station at Port Essington at thirty shillings per week. In this
capacity and from his previous experience, Robinson was aware of the activities of Macassan trepangers. He was
back at Port Essington in March 1880 and later the following year, in a report to J A G Little, the Sub-Collector of
Customs, drew attention to the dutiable goods brought on Macassan praus. Robinson was appointed a provisional
and temporary customs officer on 28 December 1881 on an annual salary of 20 Pounds.
By now Robinson was a highly experienced bushman who had tried several ways, all unsuccessful, of making
a fortune, so regular income may have been welcome. Though his official position in the government service was
lowly, he was obviously accepted as a social equal by senior officers. This acceptance was no doubt made easier as
the years passed and his resources increased. His skill with a billiards cue may also have helped.
Robinson collected duties from one Macassan prau early in 1882, but the real basis for controlling this industry
was laid the next year in a trip by the new Sub-Collector of Customs, Alfred Searcy, accompanied by Foelsche
and Robinson. In March and April 1883, they interviewed several praus, informing the masters of the need to
pay duties and purchase a newly instituted licence. In his report, Searcy pays tribute to Robinson, ‘who from his
knowledge of the Macassar language was a check upon the interpreter and his intimate acquaintance with the
dialect of the Port Essington natives was very valuable in gaining information’. The new charges were to be paid
to Robinson who, later in the year, was provided with a customs uniform and revolver. In the following season,
Searcy was again on hand to help with the first praus and later, in March and April 1884, he and Robinson sailed
as far as Melville Bay checking that all praus had paid up. During 1884 also, Robinson left the Cobourg Cattle
Company at Port Essington and set up camp in Bowen Strait. Given the level of exactions from the Macassans and
his crucial role in this, he was able, after some difficulty, to obtain a salary of 100 Pounds. Over the next few years,
the collection of licence fees and duties from the Macassans became regularised and Robinson developed his camp
with further government assistance.
All was not, however, plain sailing. In February 1886, coming back to Palmerston in the lugger, Bertie,
Robinson was caught in a cyclone. The lugger sank, drowning an Aboriginal woman on board; Robinson and the
two Aboriginal crewmen had a long swim to shore. Eventually they managed to get back to the camp in Bowen
Strait and, coming in later on an old cutter, met a party that had just set off to rescue them. In 1888, the Government
Resident, J L Parsons, visited the camp and commended it as a place for the Macassans to call. He praised
Robinson as ‘the very man for the work, having a thorough knowledge of the coast and having a great influence
over native races’.