>> Go Back - page 00 - >> List of Entriess
As the years went by mutual respect developed between Robinson and the Macassans. In 1895, two experienced
captains arrived with their crews in canoes after losing their praus in a cyclone in the Gulf of Carpentaria. Robinson
treated them as old friends. An old captain in Macassar, reminiscing about the voyages to Australia, recalled
Robinson’s name, as well as that of various employees and associates, for Robinson sometimes delegated the
actual work of dealing with the Macassans.
He finally resigned his position as a customs officer in December 1899 and sold his schooner, his camp in
Bowen Strait and the goodwill of the business.
During his years as a customs officer, Robinson had had various other interests. He sometimes obtained rice
and other supplies from the Macassans and, apart from feeding his own camp and employees, may have sold some
rations to others. In one of his early encounters with the Macassans, he was offered, but refused, a bribe of pearls
and, on another occasion, opium. In 1885, he was engaged to carry cargo to a newly opened station on the Goyder
River in eastern Arnhem Land, but was unable to locate the meeting point and was nearly taken by a crocodile for
his pains.
His main source of income, which came to be considerable, was buffalo hides. He was aware of the earliest
buffalo-shooting activity on the mainland at Raffles Bay in 1877 and in 1880 began in a small way in the same area
near his camp. In 1884, he ‘opened up the Alligator River country’ and over the next seven years sent 7 000 hides
to the London market By 1897 he claimed to have exported 20 000 from the mainland, and two years later ‘about
40 000’. On Melville Island, he and his men shot 6 600 in 1895 and 1896. Though no mean shot himself and
certainly no stranger to the work involved, Robinson’s most important role in this industry was as organiser.
He first visited Melville Island as early as 1877 and then at least twice in the 1880s, but his major interest began
in 1892 when he took out a lease and began searching for a base. Among his employees at this time was the famous
Joe Cooper. After a good start, Robinson’s men were driven off the island by Aboriginal attacks and, in 1897;
Robinson was contemplating withdrawing his interest. However, he still held the lease and was actively involved
when Cooper returned to settle in 1905. Some years later, the lease was sold to Vestey Brothers.
Robinson also continued his early involvement with mining. In 1899, he was ‘well acquainted with the
auriferous prospecting along the river banks and flats’ and planned, with others, ‘a mammoth dredging scheme’
for the Wandie goldfield, east of Pine Creek. He visited Ballarat at this time and two dredges were built, but no
substantial results were achieved. In 1899 and 1900, he owned the battery on the Wandie field.
Robinson had several trips away from the Territory. In 1889, he recuperated from an illness by visiting Japan
and in 1897 he had a trip to England, where he met members of his family. He visited southern Australia on several
occasions and was in Newcastle in 1902, acting as godfather to the son of a family friend.
About 1907, he left the Northern Territory permanently, settling first in Sydney and later in Melbourne. A stocky
man with ‘trim beard and silver hair, brown face melted into a lace of lines’, he joined the Yorick Club and ‘never
tired of telling of his adventures’. For the last seven years of his life, he lived in the Union Club Hotel in Collins
Street, where he died, of cyanide poisoning on 15 November 1917. The coroner could find no evidence of the
source of the poison. He never married and had no known children. Robinson was buried in Brighton cemetery
with Anglican rites. His estate, valued for probate at 12 461 Pounds, was left to his elder brother.
C C Macknight, The Voyage to Marege, 1976; The Farthest Coast, 1969; A Searcy, In Northern Seas, 1905; In Australian Tropics, 1907; Argus,
16 November 1917; The Northern Territory Times and Gazette, 15, 22 September 1899; Adelaide Register, 16 November 1917, 27 May 1897,
30 April 1892, 1 June 1897; Sydney Sun, 23 December 1910; Correspondence, H B Robinson to C C Macknight, 29 October 1984, 10 January
1985; SAPP, 1888/53, 1905/49, 1900/45, 1901/45; SAA, 1374/A305, 1374/A5175, 1374/A5267, 1374/A6173; 790/1876/74, 790/1880/1, 70,
371, 790/1881/721, 790/1882/346, 790/1883/3 19, 323, 667, 790/1884/ 177/445, 917, 1160, 790/1886/356, 790/1895/17s, 790/1899, 497; SAA
PRG 247, series 1, Little to Lewis, I March 1878; SAA PRG 247, Foelsche to Brooke, 2 March 1880.
CAMPBELL MACKNIGHT, Vol 1.ROBINSON, HENRY (HARRY) (1890–1966), stationmaster, was born in Preston, England, on 17 April 1890,
the son of John Robinson, railway labourer, and Dorothy Robinson, nee Salisbury.
Educated in England, Robinson arrived in Darwin in 1913. He worked for the Commonwealth Railways in the
Northern Territory and for many years was stationmaster at Pine Creek and Darwin. He retired from this position
in 1950. In 1926, he was appointed a Justice of the Peace and at the time of his death in 1966 had held the position
longer than anyone else in the Territory. He was a member of the Royal Ancient Order of Buffalos Lodge in
Darwin and the Buffalo Rugby League Club, as well as various other organisations.
Robinson was married twice, first in 1918 to Bertha Amelia Gilroy and the second time in 1963 to Bessie Janet
Phillis Johnson. He had no children. He died in Darwin on 14 June 1966, a much-respected figure.
Family information.
JOY DAVIS, Vol 1.ROBINSON, ROLAND EDWARD (1912–1992), worker in many and various occupations and author, was born
of English parents on 12 June 1912 in Balbriggan, Ireland. He migrated with his parents to Australia at the age of
nine. His mother, who had literary and musical interests, died soon after the family’s arrival in Australia. Robinson’s
early years were harsh. He left school at 14 and was employed in various poorly paid jobs in rural New South
Wales, Sydney and Tasmania. He read widely, however, providing himself with a rich literary education.
A conscientious objector to military service, in 1945 he was sent to the Northern Territory as a labourer in the
Civic Construction Corps. By then, he was writing poetry and had already published his first book of verse, Beyond
the Grass-Tree Spears, in 1944. He was an active member of the Jindyworobak movement, which was oriented