John Robinson (Treasury)

John Robinson (1727–1802) was an English lawyer, politician and government official.

Born on 15 July 1727, and baptised at St. Lawrence, Appleby, Westmorland, on 14 August 1727, he was the eldest son of Charles Robinson, an Appleby tradesman, who died on 19 June 1760, in his fifty-eighth year, having married, at Kirkby Thore on 19 May 1726, Hannah, daughter of Richard Deane of Appleby. He was educated until 17 at Appleby grammar school, and was then articled to his aunt's husband, Richard Wordsworth, of Sockbridge in Barton, Westmorland, clerk of the peace for the county, and grandfather of the poet William Wordsworth. He was admitted as attorney, practised law in Appleby, and became town clerk on 1 October 1750; he was mayor in 1761. On 2 February 1759 he entered Gray's Inn.

Robinson acquired property and local influence, by marriage and inheritance, and Sir James Lowther made him his principal law agent and land steward. He was created a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant of Westmorland in 1762, and through the influence of Lowther was returned as Member of Parliament for Westmorland on 5 January 1764, continuing to represent it until the dissolution in September 1774.

In 1765 Robinson rebuilt the White House, Appleby, and entertained Lord North the prime minister there. He was created secretary of the treasury by North on 6 February 1770. A quarrel with Lowther blew up in early 1773, over local patronage; it saw a challenge to a duel, which Robinson turned down. Robinson resigned the post of law agent to the Lowther estates, and was succeeded in it by his first cousin, John Wordsworth, the poet's father.

Robinson held the secretaryship of the treasury until 1782. He found another seat in parliament, the safe government borough of Harwich, which he represented from October 1774 until his death. In 1780 he was also returned for Seaford, but preferred his old constituency. While in office he was the chief ministerial agent in carrying on the business of parliament, and he was the medium of communication between the ministry and its supporters. The whig satires of the day, such as the Rolliad and the Probationary Odes regularly attacked him, as did Junius and Richard Brinsley Sheridan, when attacking bribery: those whom he seduced from the opposition were known as "Robinson's rats". He brought, on 3 July 1777 an action against Henry Sampson Woodfall, printer of the Public Advertiser for libel, in accusing him of sharing in government contracts, and obtained a verdict of forty shillings and costs.

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