Philip Stewart Robinson

Phil was born at Chunar in India and was one of six children of Julian Robinson, an army chaplain and editor of the newspaper The Pioneer. His mother was Harriet Woodcocke, daughter of Thomas Sharpe, Vicar of Doncaster. Phil was educated at Marlborough College and after graduating in 1865, worked as a librarian at Cardiff. In 1869 he returned to India to assist his father at The Pioneer. He edited several other publications and in 1873 he joined Allahabad College as a professor of literature. Robinson was also appointed a Supreme Governor of Censor to the vernacular press in India. Retiring in 1877 he returned to England to work for The Daily Telegraph, serving as a reporter during the second Afghan campaign and the Zulu war. He was dismissed from the Sunday Times in May 1891 after he published a piece on the Prince of Wales' finances.{{cite news |url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=EP18910519.2.39 |newspaper=Evening Post |date=19 May 1891 |title=A Newspaper Sensation. Phil Robinson and the Sunday Times. A Prince's Finances. |page=2}} He also worked with the Daily Chronicle and then The Pall Mall Gazette.{{cite ODNB |author=Owen, W. B. (revised by Andrew Grout) |chapter=Robinson, Philip Stewart (1849–1902) |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/35799 |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2004}} He was a member of the Savage Club and appointed fourteen of its members into The Sunday Times after becoming its editor.{{cite book |author=Hibbert, H.G. |title=Fifty years of a Londoner's life |place=New York |year=1916 |publisher=Dodd, Mead and Company |pages=177–179 |url=https://archive.org/stream/cu31924026124648#page/n229/mode/2up}}

Robinson married Sarah Elizabeth King in December 1876 and they had a son and a daughter. This marriage ended in a scandalous divorce that was covered extensively by the press.{{cite news |newspaper=Te Aroha News |date=13 July 1889 |page=4 |url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/imageserver/imageserver.pl?oid=TAN18890713.1.4&ext=png |title=Phil Robinson's Divorce. Mrs. Robinson conducts her own case. A strange story}} His wife claimed cruelty, adultery and desertion and was granted a judicial separation.{{cite news |url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&cl=search&d=WH18890712.2.18&srpos=179 |newspaper=Wanganui Herald |page=2 |date=12 July 1889 |title=Phil Robinson's Divorce Case. Singular statements.}} In 1882 he served as a war correspondent for the Daily Chronicle in Egypt and in Sudan from 1885. He was declared bankrupt in 1889 and he changed his name to Frederick Stennard Robinson to evade creditors. From 1893 he lived with Alice Cornwell who took the name of Robinson although they were not married. They had a daughter.{{cite news |newspaper=Thames Star |date=18 November 1889 |page=2 |title=Phil Robinson Bankrupt |url=http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=THS18891118.1.2}} He lived at Mortivals in Takeley, Essex. From 1898 he served in Cuba as a correspondent for the Pall Mall Gazette and later the Associated Press during which time he suffered imprisonment. He published little after that and suffered from poor health, possibly from syphilis.{{Cite ODNB |author=W. B. Owen (revised Andrew Grout) |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |year=2004 |chapter=Robinson, Philip Stewart (1849–1902) |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/35799}}{{cite ODNB |author=Owen, W.B. (rev. Andrew Grout) |title=Oxford Dictionary of National Biography |date=8 September 2022 |chapter=Robinson, Philip Stewart |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/35799}}{{cite book |author=McAleer, Joseph |title=Escape Artist: The Nine Lives of Harry Perry Robinson |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2020 |pages=117–118}}

He published several books on life in India that were written in a humorous tone. These works include:

• Nugae Indicae, or on Leave in my Compound (1871)
• Second edition as [https://archive.org/details/NugaeIndicae Nugae Indicae. Selected from Zechariah Oriel's Note book.] (1873)
• [https://archive.org/details/InMyIndianGarden In my Indian Garden] (1878)
• [https://archive.org/details/underpunkah00robiiala Under the Punkah] (1881)
• [https://archive.org/details/noahsarkormornin00robirich Noah's Ark, or Mornings at the Zoo] (1881)
• [https://archive.org/details/undersun00robi Under the Sun] (1882)
• [https://archive.org/details/poetsbirds00robiuoft The Poets' Birds] (1883)
• [https://archive.org/details/saintstousinners00robirich Sinners and Saints : a Tour across the States and round them; with three months among the Mormons] (1883) {{cite journal |title="Surely There is a Vein for Silver and a Place for Gold:" Mining and Religion in the Nineteenth Century Intermountain West |author=Francaviglia, Richard |journal=The John Whitmer Historical Association Journal |volume=26 |year=2006 |pages=194–213 |jstor=43200242}}
• Chasing a Fortune (1884)
• Tigers at Large (1884)
• The Valley of Teetotum Trees (1886)
• Along with his brothers Edward Kay Robinson and Harry Perry Robinson -[https://archive.org/details/talesbythreebro00robigoog Tales by Three Brothers] (1902)

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Category:British people in colonial India

Category:British non-fiction writers

Category:1847 births

Category:1902 deaths

Category:People educated at Marlborough College