Frederick Walter Robinson

Frederick Walter Robinson (nickname Doc Robbie) (1888–1971) was an Australian academic at the University of Queensland. He was the founder of the university's Fryer Library and one of the instigators of the John Oxley Library (now part of the State Library of Queensland).

Early life Frederick Walter Robinson was born in Sydney, Australia in 1888, the son of Joseph Kitson Robinson and his wife Jenny Horne. He won prizes and scholarships in English and classics including the Cooper travelling scholarship, which he used to study at the University of Jena, Germany. He was awarded his Ph.D., magna cum laude, for his thesis in German on Roman history. He returned to Australia where he was an assistant professor and taught modern languages at the Royal Military College, Duntroon in 1913. He was commissioned and promoted honorary captain. From January 1917 Robinson served as intelligence officer with the 5th Division. He was mentioned in dispatches. In July 1918 he was appointed to the Australian Corps School in France and the Education Service School in Cambridge. He became assistant director of education, A.I.F. depots in Britain.

Robinson married Catherine Campbell Robertson-Glasgow, a voluntary hospital worker on May 14, 1919 in London, and they returned to Australia and his work at Duntroon. He had developed an admiration for the city of Canberra and his book, Canberra's First Hundred Years (1924) reflected that respect.

Move to Queensland In 1923, Robinson accepted a position as lecturer in English and German at the University of Queensland. As a young lecturer in the 1920s under the auspices of the English and Modern Languages Association of Queensland, Robinson led a group of university and school teachers of English to conduct a local version of Henry Newbolt's report on the teaching of English in England.

The Report on the teaching of English in secondary schools in Queensland, published in October 1927, was the result of four years of characteristically methodical work by Robinson, involving the collation of responses to detailed questionnaires sent to every secondary school in Queensland as well as a considered response to some of the key issues – such as the relative importance of literary and language studies – raised by Newbolt. documenting his work within Queensland and in supporting the establishment of the university at St Lucia.

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