Monumental mason, born in Padiham, Lancashire. He was the son of William Robinson, also a monumental mason. By 1861 he was married, still living in Padiham, and described himself, in the census of that year, as a journeyman stonemason. By 1871 he was established at 8 Upper Duke Street, Southport, as a monumental marble mason. His workshop, with ‘T. Robinson’s Cemetery Monumental Works’ emblazoned across the fascia, stood immediately opposite the entrance to Southport Cemetery.
On 9 December 1886, two out of the three lifeboats launched to rescue the crew of the Mexico, a German ship which had been driven aground off Ainsdale, Merseyside, capsized with the loss of 27 of the 29 lifeboatmen. A disaster fund was established and part of the money set aside to erect memorials in Southport, St Annes and Lytham, the three towns from which the lifeboats had been launched. Robinson provided a stone relief of the sinking of the Southport lifeboat, the Eliza Fernley, for the memorial designed by Ernest Walter Johnson and erected in Southport Cemetery over the graves of six of the crew. He also won the design competition for the memorial to the work of Southport lifeboatmen in general, an obelisk bearing reliefs of the loss of the Eliza Fernley and of the new replacement lifeboat, unveiled on Southport Promenade on 28 June 1888.
In addition to the many monuments and headstones Robinson supplied for others in Southport Cemetery, he also designed his own tomb, with a surmounting figure of the Virgin clasping the Cross. He died on 11 March 1895, his effects (denoting the success of his business) amounting to £2,597 18s. 1d. (roughly equivalent to £450,000 in 2025).
Ancestry sources: England Censuses for 1851, 1861 and 1871; National Probate Calendar for 1895.
Bibliography: E. Morris and E. Roberts, Public Sculpture of Cheshire and Merseyside, Liverpool, 2012, pp. 199–200; Sarsfield Memorials Liverpool: Duke Street Cemetery Southport.
Terry Cavanagh, September 2025