ROBINS, William Palmer

1882 - 1959

William Palmer Robins was born in Southwark, London on 21 July 1882, eldest son and second child of William Benjamin Robins (13 February 1858-29 December 1914), an art teacher, and his wife Annie née Palmer (1857-26 November 1939), an elementary teacher, who married at St Saviour Southwark in 1880. In 1891, William was an 8-year-old, living at Hatcham Park Road, St Paul Deptford, London with his parents, 33-year-old William and 33-year-old Annie, with siblings Annie Caroline 10, Arthur 6, John Marshall 3 and Ernest Dicye 1, all born in London. As a child William studied at Roan's School in Greenwich and architecture at King's College, Strand where he was awarded a silver medal for the History of Architecture, St Martin's School of Art and Goldsmiths College followed this. He married at Edmonton, London in 1910, Mabel Louisa Matthews (1884-21 August 1917), an artist and sculptor, and in 1911, a 28-year-old drawing master, living at 49 Meadowvale Road, Ealing, London with his 27-year-old wife Mabel, later moving to Knebworth, Hertfordshire as Head of the Etching Department in the London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts, serving in the Artist's Rifles during World War I. A landscape painter, lithographer, and etcher also an essayist and book illustrator, and a member of the Royal Society of Painter-Etchers and Engravers also a member of the Chicago Society of Etchers and of the Print Makers' Society of California. He exhibited in the UK, Venice, Florence, Paris, Zurich, and Los Angeles also exhibiting at the Ipswich Fine Art Club in 1923, three dry point works 'Near Beccles', 'Farm near Sandwich' and 'Below Bray' and an aquatint 'Cement Works, Rochester'. His first wife died giving birth to their surviving child, Bridget (1917-1983), and William married secondly at Brentford in 1919, Miriam Gladys Matthews (9 December 1890-6 February 1984), his late wife's younger sister, and went on to have four further children. In 1939, a teacher of drawing engraving artist, living at 10 Grimsdells Lane, Amersham, Buckinghamshire, with a married Catherine Marjorie Robins (26 July 1908-14 June 2005), a portrait artist, and his widowed mother Annie, who died later that year. He was of 3 St Oswalds Studio, Sedlescombe Road, London SW.6, when he died at 16 Fitzroy Square, London W.1, on 14 July 1959, leaving effects to the value of £687.18s.7d.
Website: https://www.wprobins.com

Royal Academy Exhibits
from The Cottage, Knebworth Station, Herts.
1912 1379 Middlesex Hayricks - etching
1913, 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926, 1927, 1928, 1929, 1930, 1931, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1956, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960

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Works by This Artist