{{Short description|English writer (1775–1867)}} {{Use British English|date=January 2021}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2019}} {{Infobox person |name = Henry Crabb Robinson |image = Portrait of H Crabb Robinson (crop).png |caption = 1869 engraving by William Holl the younger after a photograph of Henry Crabb Robinson |birth_name = |birth_date = {{Birth date|1775|05|13|df=y}} |birth_place = Bury St Edmunds, England |death_date = {{death date and age|1867|02|05|1775|05|13|df=y}} |death_place = London, England |occupation = {{hlist|Writer|scholar}} |spouse = }} '''Henry Crabb Robinson''' (13 May 1775 – 5 February 1867)<ref name=":0">{{Cite web |title=Henry Crabb Robinson |publisher=Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-Crabb-Robinson }}</ref> was an English writer and scholar. He was a renowned diarist who was most famous for his correspondence with major literary figures of the Romantic era including Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Charles Lamb, William Blake, and William Wordsworth. Throughout his lifetime, he was also a lawyer and established a legal practice. Additionally, he was a founding member of University College London.

==Life== Robinson was born in Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk, as the third and youngest son of Henry Robinson (1736-1815) and Jemima (1736-1793), daughter of Denny Crabb, a landowner, maltster, and deacon of the congregational church at Wattisfield, Suffolk, and sister of Habakkuk Crabb.<ref>{{cite ODNB | url=https://www.oxforddnb.com/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-23842 | doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/23842 | title=Robinson, Henry Crabb (1775–1867), diarist and journalist | isbn=978-0-19-861412-8 }}</ref>

After education at small private schools, he was articled in 1790 to an attorney in Colchester. At Colchester he heard John Wesley preach one of his last sermons. In 1796, he entered the office of a solicitor in Chancery Lane, London; but in 1798 a relative died, leaving Robinson a sum yielding a considerable yearly income. Proud of his independence and eager for travel, he went abroad in 1800. Between 1800 and 1805, he studied at various places in Germany, meeting men of letters there, including Goethe, Schiller, Johann Gottfried Herder and Christoph Martin Wieland. He then became correspondent for ''The Times'' in Altona in 1807. Later on he was sent to Galicia, in Spain, as a war correspondent in the Peninsular War.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Durán de Porras |first1=Elías |title=Galicia, the Times y la Guerra de la Independencia. Henry Crabb Robinson y la corresponsalía de The Times en A Coruña (1808-1809) |date=2008 |publisher=Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza |location=A Coruña |isbn=9788495892676}}</ref> [[File:Grave of Henry Crabb Robinson in Highgate Cemetery.jpg|thumb|Grave of Henry Crabb Robinson in Highgate Cemetery]] On his return to London in 1809, Robinson decided to quit journalism and studied for the Bar, to which he was called in 1813, and became leader of the Eastern Circuit. Fifteen years later he retired, and by virtue of his conversation and qualities became a leader in society. He was one of the founders of the London University (now University College London)<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/uclart/about/collections/objects/four-founders-of-ucl |title=The Four Founders of UCL |publisher=University College London |access-date=22 November 2015}}</ref> and travelled several times to Italy, as many of his contemporaries did. Among those whom he befriended in Rome in 1829 was the novelist Sarah Burney.

Robinson died unmarried, aged 91. He was buried in a vault in Highgate Cemetery alongside his friend Edwin Wilkins Field.<ref>{{Cite DNB |last=Rigg |first=James McMullen |wstitle=Rolt, Sir John |volume=49 |pages=173,174}}</ref> A bust of Crabb Robinson was made, and a portrait by Edward Armitage.<ref name="DNB00"/>

==Works== Robinson's ''Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence'' was published posthumously in 1869.{{sfn |Cousin |1910 |p=319}} It contains reminiscences of central figures of the English romantic movement: including Coleridge, Charles Lamb, William Blake, William Wordsworth, and of other writers such as Sarah Burney. They are documents on the daily lives of London writers, artists, political figures and socialites. In his essay on Blake, Swinburne says, "Of all the records of these his latter years, the most valuable, perhaps, are those furnished by Mr. Crabb Robinson, whose cautious and vivid transcription of Blake's actual speech is worth more than much vague remark, or than any commentary now possible to give."<ref name="Symons">{{Cite book |last=Symons |first=Arthur |title=William Blake |publisher=E. P. Dutton and Company |location=New York |year=1907 |pages=331–335 |chapter=Appendix: Extracts from the Diary, Letters, and Reminiscences of Henry Crabb Robinson |chapter-url=http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/William_Blake_(Symons)/Extracts_from_the_Diary,_Letters,_and_Reminiscences_of_Henry_Crabb_Robinson}}</ref> In 1829, Robinson was made a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries (F.S.A.), and contributed a paper to ''Archæologia'' entitled "The Etymology of the Mass".<ref name=DNB00>{{Cite DNB |last=Rae |first=William Fraser |author-link=William Fraser Rae |wstitle=Robinson, Henry Crabb |volume=49 |quote=''sources:'' ''Diary, Reminiscences, and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson'', by Thomas Sadler; ''Letters of Charles Lamb'', ed. Ainger.}}</ref>

His diaries were bequeathed to Dr Williams's Library, because Robinson had been a member of the Essex Street Chapel, the first avowedly Unitarian congregation in England.

==References== {{reflist|30em}}

'''Attribution:''' * {{A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature|wstitle=Robinson, Henry Crabb|page=319}} * {{DNB |wstitle=Robinson, Henry Crabb |volume=49}}

==Further reading== *Diana Behler: "Henry Crabb Robinson as a Mediator of Lessing and Herder to England". In: ''Lessing Yearbook'' 7 (1975), pp.&nbsp;105–126 *Diana Behler: "Henry Crabb Robinson: A British Acquaintance of Wieland and his Advocate in England". In: ''Christoph Martin Wieland. Nordamerikanische Forschungsbeitrage zur 250. Wiederkehr seines Geburtstages 1983''. Ed. Hansjörg Schelle. Tübingen, 1984, pp.&nbsp;539–571 *Diana Behler: "Henry Crabb Robinson and Weimar". In: ''A Reassessment of Weimar Classicism'', ed. Gerhart Hoffmeister. Lewiston (NY), 1996, pp.&nbsp;157–180 * {{Cite EB1911|wstitle=Robinson, Henry Crabb|volume=23|page=422}} *Lorna J. Clark, ed.: ''The Letters of Sarah Harriet Burney''. Athens, Georgia, and London: University of Georgia Press, pp.&nbsp;125–130, 133–143 and passim *Edith Morley. ''The Life and Times of Henry Crabb Robinson''. London: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1935

==External links== {{wikisource|works=or}} *{{Commons category-inline|Henry Crabb Robinson}} *[http://www.crabbrobinson.co.uk/ Henry Crabb Robinson Project] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171216091103/http://www.crabbrobinson.co.uk/ |date=16 December 2017 }}, website of the Queen Mary University of London

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Robinson, Henry Crabb}} Category:1775 births Category:1867 deaths Category:19th-century English diarists Category:19th-century English journalists Category:19th-century English male journalists Category:19th-century English lawyers Category:19th-century Unitarians Category:Burials at Highgate Cemetery Category:English barristers Category:Writers from Bury St Edmunds Category:Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London Category:English war correspondents Category:English Unitarians Category:The Times journalists Category:British people of the Peninsular War