Charles Robin

Charles Robin (October 30, 1743 – June 10, 1824) was a merchant from the Isle of Jersey, who traded between the maritime region of Canada and the British Isles.

Fishery trader The coastline of St. Brelade, Jersey, birthplace of Charles Robin He was born in Saint Brélade, Jersey in 1743. By 1763, he was the captain of a ship working in the Newfoundland cod trade. In 1765, with his two brothers and two others, they formed a firm which developed fishing grounds off Cape Breton Island and the Gaspé region. The company sold dried cod to Portugal and Spain, and salmon, furs, and timber to England and Quebec. Robin saw off competitors from Guernsey and several other Jersey firms through judicious employment of a truck system.

Robin brought exiled Acadians from France to work on Cape Breton Island and in the Chaleur Bay region. The area was sparsely settled in these early years: in 1765 there were 209 persons in the Baie des Chaleurs: 93 Indians in the Restigouche area and 109 persons in Gaspé. became partner in a new firm under his own name in 1783. Hubert, Jean, and Moore. Many of these firms continued to exploit Isle Madame's fisheries until well into the twentieth century.

When he left Paspébiac for good on 28 September 1802, his company had extended to include general stores and fishing stations all along the Gaspé, with a few in Cape Breton and at least one on the Lower North Shore of the St Lawrence at Magpie. His company was exporting somewhere in the region of 15,000 to 17,000 quintals (kin'tle: a quintal is equivalent to 112 pounds) of dry cod each year to ports in Europe – principally Spain, Portugal, and Italy – and the coast of South America.

The company evolved into the 20th century as Robin, Jones and Whitman, with establishments, on the Gaspé Coast in Bonaventure, Paspébiac, Port-Daniel–Gascons (Anse-aux-Gascons), Newport Islands, Newport Point, Pabos, Grande-Rivière, Sainte-Thérèse-de-Gaspé, Anse-à-Beaufils, Percé, Barachois, Malbaie, Gaspé (where there were two stores), Anse-à-Griffon and Rivière-au-Renard. In New Brunswick there were locations at Caraquet, Shippegan and Lamèque. In Nova Scotia, Chéticamp, Inverness, Musquodoboit Harbour. On the North Shore of the St. Lawrence River, Magpie River, Thunder River (Rivière-au-Tonnerre), Sheldrake (Port-Cartier), Eskimo Point, Seven Islands (Sept-Îles), Mingan and St John River.