Ronald "Robbie" Edward Robinson, FBA (3 September 1920 – 19 June 1999) was a distinguished historian of the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

who between 1971 and 1987 held the Beit Professorship of Commonwealth History at the University of Oxford. After schooling at

Battersea Grammar School Battersea Grammar School was a Voluntary-Controlled Secondary Grammar School in South London. It was established in Battersea in 1875 by the Sir Walter St John Trust and moved to larger premises in Streatham in 1936. The school closed when it w ...

, he proceeded to

St. John's College, Cambridge St John's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge founded by the Tudor matriarch Lady Margaret Beaufort. In constitutional terms, the college is a charitable corporation established by a charter dated 9 April 1511. The ...

, as a History Scholar in 1938 and with the outbreak of the Second World War he joined the Royal Air Force, eventually spending most of his armed service in

Africa Africa is the world's second-largest and second-most populous continent, after Asia in both cases. At about 30.3 million km2 (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of Earth's total surface area ...

. After the end of the war, between 1947 and 1949, Robinson worked on the subject of "trusteeship" for his doctorate at Cambridge. He was subsequently elected a Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, in 1949. Robinson's extraordinarily influential work, '' Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism'', was co-authored with John Gallagher (with the help of his wife Alice Denny) and first published in 1961. The latter work had been preceded by a widely read article – also co-authored with Gallagher – entitled, "

The Imperialism of Free Trade "The Imperialism of Free Trade" is an academic article by John Gallagher and Ronald Robinson first published in ''The Economic History Review'' in 1953. The article was influential in the debate concerning the causes of British imperial expansio ...

". Published in 1953, the latter constitutes a groundbreaking essay among theorists of imperial expansion and "is reputedly the most cited historical article ever published".Wm. Roger Louis, 'Historians I Have Known', ''Perspectives'' (May 2001

Upon Robinson's retirement from Oxford in 1987, a book of essays entitled ''Theory and Practice in the History of European Expansion Overseas'' was published in his honour.

References

External links

Obituary from Kenneth Wilburn of East Carolina University
*''R.E. Robinson'' obituary in '' The Times'', June 1999 1920 births 1999 deaths Fellows of Balliol College, Oxford Historians of the British Empire Imperialism studies Alumni of St John's College, Cambridge Fellows of St John's College, Cambridge Beit Professors of Commonwealth History People educated at Battersea Grammar School 20th-century British historians Fellows of the British Academy Historians of South Asia {{UK-historian-stub