Sir Thomas Robinson, 1st Baronet (1703–1777), of Rokeby, Yorkshire, was an English politician who sat in the House of Commons from 1727 to 1734 and was a Governor of Barbados.

Rokeby, Yorkshire, 23 September 1675, d. 24 February 1720), who married, in 1699, Anne, daughter and heiress of Robert Walters of Cundall in Yorkshire; she died on 26 July 1730, aged 53, and was buried in the centre of the south aisle of Merton church, Surrey, where a marble monument was placed to her memory.

[1] After finishing his education, Robinson went on the Grand Tour, paying attention to architecture in Greece and Italy, and the school of Palladio.

[1] At the 1727 British general election Robinson was returned as Member of Parliament for Morpeth, through the influence of George Bowes.

These acts were recorded in 1737, in two Latin inscriptions on two marble tables, fixed in the two stone piers at the entrance to the park from Greta Bridge.

He practically made the place of which Sir Walter Scott wrote in his poem Rokeby, and built the great bridge which spans the River Tees there.

In a note to William Mason's Epistle to Shebbeare, he is dubbed "the Petronius of the present age", referencing the Satyricon.

[3] Robinson acquired shares in Ranelagh Gardens, and became the director of the entertainments; his knowledge of the fashionable world then proved of use.

Anna Eliza Bray wrote of his fondness for "books, the fine arts, music, and refined society", and mentions the weakness of his eyes.

[1] Robinson died at his house at Chelsea on 3 March 1777, aged 76, without leaving legitimate issue, and was buried in the southeast corner of the chancel of Merton church, a monument being placed there to his memory.

Later in life he and Welbore Ellis persuaded Sir William Stanhope to "improve" Alexander Pope's garden.

[1] Among Robinson's other works are parts of Ember Court, Surrey, then the residence of the Onslows, the new parish church at Glynde in Sussex, and the Gothic gateway at Bishop Auckland in Durham.

At his death he left them to an apothecary who had married his natural daughter, with instructions to publish; but Robinson's brother, Archbishop Lord Rokeby, stopped the publication.