More on the Robinsons and their Relations

Mr Robinson is said by Winifred Gerin to be related to the Marquis of Ripon. The marquis ate fell into abeyance in 1923, but its fortunes can be traced in The New Extinct Peerage by L. C. Cave. Sir Will aim RobinsoJ;1 was created a baronet in 1689. He had a number of sons, but only two left any issue. The second son and third baronet, Sir Tancred Robinson, had two sons who became baronets but they had no heirs. When Sir Norton Robinson died in 1795 the title passed to the descendants of Sir William's youngest son, Thomas, who as a diplomat, had been elevated to the peerage as the first Baron Grantham. Lord Grantham's grandson became Prime Minister briefly in 1828, although by that time he had acquired the title of Viscount Goderich. Goderich was an undistinguished Prime Minister and though he was further elevated to being Earl of Ripon and continued to hold cabinet rank in the 1840s, he is hardly as famous as Canning, his predecessor as premier, or his successor, Wellington, or even his own son, a successful viceroy of India, who was, after the Brontes' time, promoted to being Marquis of Ripon. The viceroy had one son, but he left no heirs, and the Robinson baronetcy, Grantham baronetcy, Goderich viscountcy, Ripon earldom, and one other peerage that had been collected on the way, all died out. This was a very grand family for the Robinsons of Thorp Green to claim a connection with, but the degree of kinship must have been fairly remote. Since Cave names all the descendants of Sir William Robinson, Edmund Robinson must have descended from a younger brother of the first baronet, or some remoter ancestor, and cannot have been closer to the Earl of Ripon than a third cousin. Nevertheless, we can see the