Mark Robinson (1753-1834)

The son of an admiral, Robinson experienced intermittent employment in the French wars, without any real opportunity for distinguishing himself. For many years he was embroiled in a legal case relating to the activities of a maverick officer, Home Riggs Popham. Even before his retirement from active service, he was an established resident of Bath, where he lived until his death.

Born on 18 May 1753 at Portsmouth, he was the son of Rear-Admiral Mark Robinson who fought in several battles during the American War of Independence and lost a leg while commanding the Shrewsbury 74 at the Battle of Chesapeake Bay on 5 September 1781. His mother was Elizabeth Reade of Portsmouth. Charles Robinson, his brother, entered the Navy with their father in April 1767 aboard the Fury, and saw further service with him on the Worcester 64 and Shrewsbury 74. He was promoted commander in 1794, and was the senior officer in that rank when he died in 1853, having been on half pay for 58 years.

Mark Robinson was commissioned lieutenant on 5 October 1776. Sometime later he was appointed at Newfoundland to command a locally hired schooner (the Canada) , and in September 1777 he requested permission from the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral John Montagu, to go home on half-pay, as he was suffering from scurvy.

Whether his unemployment for the next few years was a result of illness or lack of influence is not clear, but in January 1781 Robinson was given command of the brig Port Antonio 12 at Jamaica. Seven months later the commander-in-chief, Vice-Admiral Sir Peter Parker, promoted him commander, appointing him to the sloop Tobago 16 on that station. He appears to have been relieved in March 1782 by Commander George Martin, and did not see any further employment in the final year of the American Revolutionary War.

Like many officers, Mark Robinson was on half-pay for the years of peace that followed, but in February 1789 he was appointed to the sloop Trimmer 16, operating out of Plymouth. In October of that year he detained a Russian privateer cutter, half of whose crew were Englishmen. Since Russia was currently at war with Sweden, and thus privateering was legal, the vessel was released by the authorities shortly afterwards.

HMS Brilliant – seen in a later action with two French frigates.

The 37-year-old Robinson was at the head of a list of officers posted captain on 21 September 1790, being appointed to the Flora 36, although this was for purposes of rank only, as the frigate was undergoing a rebuild at Deptford. That the son of a senior sea officer had to wait so long for the coveted promotion to post rank suggests that his family enjoyed little in the way of ‘interest’ or reputation within the service.

At the start of the war with Revolutionary France he was appointed to commission the Brilliant 28, initially serving on the Downs station on convoy duty. During August 1793 he seized a Tuscan vessel off Ostend which had originally sailed from China, and which was laden with a cargo worth 50,000 guineas. Aboard the vessel acting as her sailing master (although he was in reality her owner with a part share of the cargo), was a naval officer who would become both famous and infamous, Home Riggs Popham. The vessel was condemned as an illegal trader, but Robinson did not enjoy a penny for the capture. Since Britain was not at war with Tuscany, and the cargo was apparently not owned by French (enemy) merchants, the prize was forfeit to the crown. The circumstances surrounding this detention would become subject to much litigation over the next decade, as Robinson unsuccessfully challenged the original High Court of Admiralty judgement. Finally in 1804 he was granted settlement of some of his legal expenses, though not the value of the prize.

At the end of August 1793, the Brilliant was damaged in a gale off Dunkirk and had to return to Portsmouth for repairs. In September while supporting the Duke of York’s army in the Netherlands, she entered the Downs carrying the wounded Prince Adolphus, and Robinson himself delivered dispatches to Whitehall. Continuing on the same station into the summer of 1794, he sent several merchant vessels back to England, and by July he was attempting to bring away the garrison at Nieuport.

In October 1794 Robinson was appointed to the Scipio 64, but within weeks he handed over the command to Captain Richard Fisher, having never taken her to sea. Before he returned to employment, he was the subject of an astonishing claim in the newspapers that he would benefit to the sum of 100,000 guineas from the capture off Ostend of the ‘Imperial Indiaman’. This simply astronomical sum would have been worth more than £11m in today’s money and no doubt would have induced a huge amount of attention at the time, however the claim appears to have been without foundation, especially given his evident lack of riches in later life.

In the spring of 1795 he joined a much more desirable ship, the Arethusa 38 in succession to Captain Sir Edward Pellew. His frigate sent in three captured merchantmen in early June, including one that had been recaptured near the entrance to Brest Harbour. The Arethusa served with Commodore Sir John Borlase Warren’s expedition to Quiberon Bay in support of the Vendée royalists, in the course of which employment she discovered the Brest fleet off Belle Isle on 19 June, the report of which led to the Battle of Groix four days later. A month later she sailed with Rear-Admiral Henry Harvey’s squadron from St. Helen’s with another convoy of 100 troop transports to support the royalist insurrection, and in September she was stationed off Belleisle. In February 1796 it was announced that she had been ordered to fit out for foreign service, whereupon Robinson ceded the command to Captain Thomas Woolley.

Robinson did not see any further employment during the remainder of the French Revolutionary War and he suffered a personal tragedy when his wife Margaretta Wythes (also called Mary), whom he had married in 1778, died at Bath in 1798. Within a year (in February 1799) while living at Pulteney Street in Bath, he had re-married, to widow Ann Shirley. They seem not have had any children.

Robinson was not immediately re-employed when the Napoleonic War broke out in May 1803, but after a brief appointment to commission the Hindostan 52 in July 1804, he joined the Swiftsure 74 in August. This ship of the line had been launched at Bucklers Hard on the Beaulieu River in the previous month and fitted out at Portsmouth. She was delayed in proceeding to the Mediterranean, and thus still at Portsmouth in late October when Vice-Admiral Sir John Orde raised his flag aboard her, sailing with that officer’s squadron three days later. Serving off Cadiz, in early December she lost her fore-yard in a gale, and sailed to nearby Gibraltar for repairs. She was still on the Cadiz station as a private ship during the early stages of the Trafalgar campaign, which followed the breakout of the French fleet from Toulon on 29 March 1805.

In May 1805 he transferred to the Royal Sovereign 100, which arrived at Spithead from Ferrol on 8 July and was taken into Portsmouth Harbour. By the time she came out of dock on 10 September he had been superseded by Captain John Conn, who took the ship out to join the Mediterranean Fleet off Cadiz. There she became Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood’s flagship, playing a distinguished part at the Battle of Trafalgar a month later. Robinson, who must have regretted missing the acclaim that would have resulted from participating in the battle, instead recommissioned the Gibraltar 80 in November, retaining her for a short period into the following spring. He sailed the ship, a Spanish prize more than fifty years old, from Portsmouth to Plymouth at the end of March 1806. Thereafter, he did not see any further active service.

Bathwick Bridge, Bath. Robinson was the principal guest when it opened in 1827

Robinson was promoted rear-admiral on 28 April 1808, in recognition of which he attended a royal levee shortly afterwards. In June the Etrusco incident was discussed at length in the House of Commons, with Captain Popham having to defend himself against a Mr Lushington, who voiced outraged that Robinson had not received a penny for the capture. In the same debate, another member contended that in fulfilling his duty and fighting the legal case, Robinson had been almost ruined. Robinson himself was apparently in London at this time and was prepared to give evidence at the bar of the House, but it does not appear that he was called upon to do so.

A different financial issue made the newspapers when Robinson’s second wife died at Bath in December 1810 aged 65, leading to a dispute over her will. A daughter from his first marriage lost a case against one of the executors who had benefitted from the will. She claimed that the second Mrs Robinson had been of unsound and imperfect mind when she had revised her will shortly before her death.

Robinson was advanced to the rank of vice-admiral on 12 August 1812, and admiral on 27 May 1825. He became a leading and respected member of Bath society, and in September 1827 he was given the honour of opening the grandiose bridge originally known as ‘Bathwick Bridge’ between Bath and Walcot. For nearly 200 years this bridge has served as a major route across the Avon River; the ornate lodges at the entrance have been restored, and three are now desirable residences.

Admiral Mark Robinson died, aged 80, on 21 February 1834 at Freshfield near Bath.

He had six children from his marriage to Margaretta Wythes, of whom four survived to adulthood. His only son, Thomas Pitt Robinson, born in 1792, entered the Navy with his father on the Swiftsure 74 in 1804, and was promoted commander in 1828 in recognition of his family’s service in the American and French wars.