ROBINSON, Kenneth (Ernest) 1914-2005

OBITUARY NOTICE— See index for CA sketch: Born March 9, 1914, in London, England; died January 18, 2005, in London, England. Educator, college administrator, and author. Robinson was a scholar of European—especially French—colonial administration. Graduating from Hertford College, Oxford, in 1936, he was employed by the Colonial Office immediately afterwards. After twelve years in government work, he joined the new Nuffield College faculty at Oxford as a fellow and a reader in Commonwealth government. He left that post in 1957 to become director and professor of Commonwealth affairs at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London. The happiest period of his life, Robinson would later say, was spent at the University of Hong Kong from 1965 until 1972, where he served as vice chancellor. At the young age of fifty-eight, Robinson went into semi-retirement. He was a Hallsworth fellow at the University of Manchester from 1972 until 1974, and lectured at the University of Aberdeen in 1979. Other than these posts, he was mainly occupied by work for the Royal African Society, where he was president from 1987 until 1996, and as honorary vice president of the Royal Commonwealth Society, beginning in 1995. Robinson was the author or coauthor of several books, including Africa in the Modern World (1955), The Dilemmas of Trusteeship (1965), and A Decade of the Commonwealth (1966). For his service to his country, he was made a commander of the British Empire in 1971.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Guardian (London, England), February 9, 2005, p. 29. Independent (London, England), February 21, 2005, p. 34.

Times (London, England), February 8, 2005, p. 53.