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Description area
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History
Robinson was born into a well-to-do-family of surgical dressing manufacturers (Robinsons of Chesterfield). He entered Manchester University to read chemistry in 1902 aged sixteen, and on graduation began research there under W.H. Perkin. Other lasting relationships from this period were with C. Weizmann (from 1906) and A. Lapworth (from 1909). In 1912 Robinson was appointed to his first chair at the University of Sydney and subsequently occupied chairs of organic chemistry at Liverpool (1915), St Andrews (1920), Manchester (1922), University College London (1928), and the Waynflete Chair of Chemistry, Oxford (1930-1955): the university extended his tenure for four years after the normal retirement age. In all these posts, Robinson developed productive research schools working in a wide range of chemical problems, and in retirement his activity continued in a small laboratory made available by the Shell Chemical Company, where he was consultant.
He was elected FRS in 1920 (Bakerian Lecture 1930, Davy Medal 1930, Royal Medal 1932, Copley Medal 1942, PRS 1945-1950) and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1947. The actual citation read 'for his investigations on plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids' though his Royal Society memorialists A.R. Todd and J.W. Cornforth suggest that 'it would have been equally, or possibly more, appropriate to have said "for his outstanding contributions to the entire science of organic chemistry".' (Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society, vol 22, 426.) Robinson was knighted in 1939 and appointed to the Order of Merit in 1949.