Henry Robinson (writer)

Henry Robinson (c. 1604 – c. 1664) was an English merchant and writer. He is best known for a work on religious toleration, Liberty of Conscience from 1644.

He was educated at St John's College, Oxford, and was a freeman of the Mercers' Company. He had travelled in continental Europe as a young man; and he was much influenced by the Dutch example of tolerance and prosperity.

A supporter of the Independent line in religion, against the orthodox Presbyterians, he was involved in controversy with William Prynne.

In politics he with Henry Parker lent support in 1649 to Parliament in the debate over 'engagement', an oath to be required affirming the legitimacy of the Parliamentary regime. In the same year he was appointed to government administrative positions, dealing with accounts and sale of crown lands, and in 1650 with farm rents and acting as secretary to the excise commissioners.

In 1650 he set up as a business, though short-lived, an Office of Addresses and Encounters. It was in Threadneedle Street in London, and charged 6d. for answers to certain types of queries, concerning real estate and employment amongst other matters. There was a free service for the poor. The creation of such an Office had been pushed for three years by Samuel Hartlib, who had lobbied for public funds for it. Robinson was an associate of Hartlib, and provided a limited implementation of a grand reformist scheme, which drew also on the French model of Théophraste Renaudot that had operated by then for 20 years. Through the simple provision of a central Register of Addresses, Robinson argued, employers could find employees.

He advocated the "free trading of truth", and wrote that "no man can have a natural monopoly of truth". He was one of a group of authors slightly ahead of John Milton in the arguments of Areopagitica against censorship. It has been said that there was essentially nothing in Milton's work that had not been anticipated by Robinson, William Walwyn, Roger Williams.

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