Thomas Robinson

Thomas Robinson (1790 – 17 May 1873) was an English churchman and academic who became the Archdeacon of Madras in 1826, Lord Almoner's Professor of Arabic at Cambridge in 1837, and Master of the Temple in 1845.

Life Robinson was the youngest son of Thomas Robinson (1749–1813). He was educated at Rugby School and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he matriculated as a scholar in 1809. In 1810 he gained the first Bell scholarship, and he graduated B.A. in 1813. He proceeded M.A. in 1816, was admitted ad eundem at Oxford in 1839, and graduated D.D. in 1844.

Robinson was ordained deacon in 1815 and priest in 1816, then went out as a missionary to India. He was appointed chaplain on the Bombay establishment, and was stationed first at Seroor and then at Poonah. He attracted the notice of Thomas Fanshaw Middleton, and in 1825 he was appointed chaplain to Middleton's successor, Reginald Heber. He was present at Trichinopoly on 2 April 1826, when Heber was drowned, and preached and published a funeral sermon. Before the end of 1826, he was made Archdeacon of Madras. In 1853 was presented to the rectory of Therfield, Hertfordshire. In the following year, he was made canon of Rochester Cathedral, resigning his professorship at Cambridge. He gave up his rectory in 1860, and the mastership of the Temple in 1869, being succeeded by Charles John Vaughan. She died at Therfield on 3 July 1855. He was survived by his wife Mary, and by two sons who were clerics, Charles Edward Ricketts (born in Madras 1829, died 1881), and Thomas (died 1895) who was a Cambridge Apostle and Head Master of Potsdam School, Jamaica.