This was the site of a small cork-processing factory that had been set up by another Briton, Thomas Reynolds, in a Franciscan convent left empty after the dissolution of the monasteries in Portugal in 1834.
[1] Robinson settled in Portalegre in 1848, eventually buying the small factory, which Reynolds had to sell to meet business debts incurred by his son, also called Thomas.
With a ready-made factory at his disposal and a family business in England to sell to, Robinson also benefitted from rapidly rising export prices for cork products.
[1][3] In 1868 Robinson purchased at public auction part of the land of the dissolved Convent, which had until then belonged to the Portuguese Exchequer.
[1] Robinson was an Evangelical Protestant and in 1880 he set up a church in Portalegre, buying a house with a theatre attached for that purpose.
He pursued altruistic activities and, in 1881, was described by the Portuguese Government's Industrial Survey of 1881 as “energetic, intelligent, from year to year he has increased the factory in size, and, through training and discipline within the framework of strict adherence to regulations governing his work force, he has raised his business to such a level of prosperity that it has become not only the main such business in the Province but has made of its proprietor one of the wealthiest owners of rural buildings in the area.”[1] George William Robinson died on 30 April 1895.