Sir Joseph Robinson, 1st Baronet

Sir Joseph Robinson Cradock, Eastern Cape
Died	30 October 1929(1929-10-30) (aged 89) Cape Town
Nationality	South African
Other names	The Old Buccaneer
Title	1st Baronet

Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1st Baronet (3 August 1840 – 30 October 1929) was a South African gold and

.

Mayor of Kimberley, Northern Cape in 1880, which he represented in the Cape parliament for four years, chairman of the Robinson South African Banking Corporation Co , Ltd and of numeral gold mines in the Transvaal Colony, he was convicted in 1921 of fraud and fined half a million pounds. He is best remembered as having paid political fixer Maundy Gregory £30,000, towards Prime Minister Lloyd George’s political fund, in exchange for a peerage. After the King personally complained and under public pressure, the government forced Robinson to reject the appointment. What became known as the Honours Scandal was one of the reason for the passing of the British Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.^[1]

Life

Joseph Benjamin Robinson was born in

Robinson fought on the side of the

Kimberley

, he soon acquired a considerable fortune.

His rather forceful business tactics came in for a lot of criticism, earning him the title of "Old Buccaneer" around Kimberly, South Africa but even so he became a member of the Mining Board and later chairman. He raised and commanded the Kimberley Light Horse. He was Mayor of Kimberley in 1880, and for four years was a representative of Griqualand West in the

Cape parliament

. On the discovery of gold in the Witwatersrand district in 1886, Alfred Beit financed a partnership with £25 000. Robinson purchased the Langlaagte and Randfontein estates, but Beit soon dissolved the partnership because of Robinson's temper and business methods. Robinson chose to keep the western portion of their former joint assets, while Beit took the eastern section. His views as to the westerly trend of the main gold-bearing reef were entirely contrary to the bulk of South African opinion at the time, but events proved him to be correct, and the enormous appreciation in value of his various properties made him one of the richest men in South Africa. He founded the Randfontein Estates Gold Mining Company in 1890, which was the largest individual undertaking on the Reef and one of the largest in the world.

As a Rand capitalist he stood aloof from combinations with other gold-mining interests, and took no part in the

that Kruger appointed the Industrial Commission of 1897, whose recommendations had they been carried out would have remedied some of the Uitlander grievances.

Before the

On 27 July 1908 on the recommendation of

In 1921 the

Honour scandal

In the 1920s, political

The case of Sir Joseph Robinson … must be regarded as little less than an insult to the Crown and to the House of Lords and may, I fear, work injury to the Prerogative in the public mind

— 

Lloyd George^[1]

During the Parliament debate that followed,

I would wish if I may without discourtesy to yourself and without impropriety, to beg His Most Gracious Majesty's permission to decline the proposal.

— Sir Joseph Robinson, in a letter to the Prime Minister read in the House of Lords on 29 June 1922.^[10]

The scandal surrounding the issue tarnished the Coalition government's image, and was somewhat responsible for the Conservatives detachment of Lloyd George's Liberals from the party, later in 1922.^{[citation needed]} The general scandal of sale of peerages led to the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.

Later life and death

Sir Joseph Robinson died at his home, Hawthorndon House, Wynberg, Cape Colony, on 30 October 1929, at the age of 89.^[3]

Family

Joseph Benjamin Robinson was the son of Robert John Robinson (1792–1886) and Martha Rozina Strutt. He had five brothers and nine sisters.^{[citation needed]}

He married Elizabeth Rebecca Ferguson, daughter of James Ferguson, on 3 October 1877 in Kimberly, South Africa.^[3] She was born 4 November 1859 in Victoria West, and died 30 March 1930 in Muizenberg, South Africa. They had 11 children including Ida, who married the Italian Ambassador to South Africa, Count Natale Teodato Labia^[13][14] the descendants of whom still reside at Robinson's Cape Town home Hawthorndon House

Sir J.B. Robinson's death in 1929 caused a great scandal in South Africa and Britain upon discovery of his will. His personal fortune of £12 million was given to his heirs except one of his daughters, who was only given a mere £2 thousand. He gave nothing to charity. There was a scathing article in the Cape Times after his death.

Legacy

A street in Kensington, Johannesburg is named after him. Located on this street is a boarding house of Jeppe High School for Boys, namely Tsessebe.^{[citation needed]}

References

Sources

• Kidd, Charles, Williamson, David (editors). Debrett's Peerage and Baronetage (1990 edition). New York: St Martin's Press, 1990.
• House of Commons (7 July 2004). "Fifth Report of the Select Committee on Public Administration". Public Administration.
• Walford, E. (1918). The county families of the United Kingdom; or, Royal manual of the titled and untitled aristocracy of England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland. Dalcassian Publishing Company.
• "Britain". The Economist.
• "Honors Touting". First Baptist Church of Perryville. 31 January 2014.
• "J.B. ROBINSON, 90, DIES IN CAPE COLONY". The New York Times. 31 October 1929.
• Roberts, A. (2018). Churchill: Walking with Destiny. Penguin Books Limited.
  ISBN 978-0-241-20564-8
  .
• Pugh, M. (2014). Lloyd George. Profiles In Power. Taylor & Francis.
  ISBN 978-1-317-86942-9
  .
• "SIR JOSEPH ROBINSON. (Hansard, 29 June 1922)". api.parliament.uk. 29 June 1922.
• Wheatcroft, G. (2005). The Strange Death of Tory England. Penguin Books Limited.
  ISBN 978-0-14-190630-0
  .
• The Nation and the Athenaeum. Nation publishing Company limited. 1922.
• Mason, R. (2018). Prime Ministerial Anecdotes. Fonthill Media.
  ISBN 978-1-78155-654-2
  .
• Jenkins, R. (2011). Baldwin. Bloomsbury Publishing.
  ISBN 978-1-4482-0200-3
  .
• Lawrence, Jeremy (2001). Buccaneer: A Biography of Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, first Baronet. The Gryphon Press.
  ISBN 978-0-620-40566-9
  . 2nd edition
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Robinson, Sir Joseph Benjamin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 23 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 423.

External links

• Transcript of the 29 June 1922 debate concerning Sir Joseph Robinson recommendation for the grant of a Peerage
• Newspaper clippings about Sir Joseph Robinson, 1st Baronet in the 20th Century Press Archives of the ZBW

Baronetage of the United Kingdom
New creation	Baronet (of Hawthornden and Dudley House) 1908–1929	Succeeded by Joseph Benjamin Robinson