William Cleaver Francis Robinson

WCF Robinson

Sir William Cleaver Francis Robinson , GCMG (born January 14, 1834 in Rosmead House, County Westmeath , Ireland , †  May 2, 1897 in London ) was a British colonial administrator . He was Governor of the Falkland Islands , the Straits Settlements , Western Australia and South Australia, and Lieutenant Governor of the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island .

biography

Robinson was the fifth son of Admiral Hercules Robinson. In 1855 he entered the service of the Colonial Office , initially as the private secretary of his older brother Hercules Robinson, 1st Baron Rosmead , for whom he worked in St. Kitts and Hong Kong . In 1862 he married and became the administrator of Montserrat . In 1866 he took over his first governor post on the Falkland Islands . Four years later, he was appointed governor of Prince Edward Island and raised to the nobility. At that time, the island was still a colony in British North America , which only joined the Canadian Confederation as the seventh province in 1873 . Robinson stayed there for another year, which meant he served as lieutenant governor for that period .

In 1874 Robinson was awarded the governorship of the colony of Western Australia for the first time . Its main task was to reject claims for self-government , as the Colonial Office believed the colony was still ready to do so. In 1877 he was appointed governor of the Straits Settlements , and three years later he returned to his post in Western Australia. Robinson was governor of the colony of South Australia for six years, from 1883 to 1889 . He was then appointed Governor of Western Australia for the third time, this time with the task of overseeing the introduction of a parliamentary system of government. In 1895 he retired and spent the last years of his life in London.

Web links

• William Cleaver Francis Robinson . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).
• Short biography on the Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island's website

predecessor	Office	successor
James George Mackenzie	Governor of the Falkland Islands 1866–1870	George Abbas Kooli D'Arcy
Robert Hodgson	Governor of Prince Edward Island 1870–1874	Robert Hodgson
Frederick Weld	Governor of Western Australia 1875–1877	Harry Ord
William Jervois	Governor of the Straits Settlements 1877–1879	Frederick Weld