Henry Crabb Robinson

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.

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.

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.

[3] 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.

[6] 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.