Kenneth Ernest Robinson (9 March 1914 – 18 January 2005) was a British civil servant and academic who specialized in colonial and Commonwealth affairs. Robinson was educated at the

Sir George Monoux Grammar School ''Sir'' is a formal honorific address in English for men, derived from Sire in the High Middle Ages. Both are derived from the old French "Sieur" (Lord), brought to England by the French-speaking Normans, and which now exist in French only as ...

and

Hertford College, Oxford Hertford College ( ), previously known as Magdalen Hall, is a colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on Catte Street in the centre of Oxford, directly opposite the main ga ...

, where he took Firsts in PPE and Modern History. In 1936 he joined the

Colonial Office The Colonial Office was a government department of the Kingdom of Great Britain and later of the United Kingdom, first created to deal with the colonial affairs of British North America but required also to oversee the increasing number of col ...

, reaching the rank of Assistant Secretary in 1946, before resigning in 1948. That year he succeeded to

Margery Perham Dame Margery Freda Perham (6 September 1895 – 19 February 1982) was a British historian of, and writer on, African affairs.The Times, 22 February 1982, page 10. She was known especially for the intellectual force of her arguments in favour of Br ...

Reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

in Commonwealth Government at

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, becoming a fellow of

Nuffield College Nuffield College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It is a graduate college and specialises in the social sciences, particularly economics, politics and sociology. Nuffield is one of Oxford's newer co ...

at the same time. In 1957, he became the Director of the

Institute of Commonwealth Studies The Institute of Commonwealth Studies, founded in 1949, is the sole postgraduate academic institution in the United Kingdom devoted to the study of the Commonwealth. It is also home to the longest-running interdisciplinary and practice-oriented ...

University of London The University of London (UoL; abbreviated as Lond or more rarely Londin in post-nominals) is a federal public research university located in London, England, United Kingdom. The university was established by royal charter in 1836 as a degree ...

, also serving as one of the first co-editors of the ''Journal of Commonwealth Political Studies'', subsequently ''

Commonwealth & Comparative Politics ''Commonwealth & Comparative Politics'' is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal of political science covering comparative politics, with an emphasis on the Commonwealth of Nations. It was established in 1961 as the ''Journal of Commonwealth ...

'', from 1961 to 1965. From 1965 to 1972, he served as the Vice-Chancellor of the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...

. Robinson was appointed a

Commander of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

in 1971.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Kenneth 1914 births 2005 deaths Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford Fellows of Nuffield College, Oxford Commanders of the Order of the British Empire Fellows of the Royal Historical Society Civil servants in the Colonial Office British academic administrators Hong Kong justices of the peace 20th-century English historians