Background
Robson was born at Langholm, Dumfriesshire.
Robson was born at Langholm, Dumfriesshire.
He graduated in medicine from Edinburgh University in 1941, returning as a lecturer in 1947 after serving as a surgeon lieutenant in the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve during the Second World War.
The Hugh Robson building in Edinburgh University is named after him, as is the Hugh Robson 24-hr computer laboratory He then became a senior lecturer at Aberdeen University, then a professor of medicine at Adelaide University. In 1966 he returned to the United Kingdom and took up the post of Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield.
In 1974 he was knighted and returned to Edinburgh University as Principal and Vice-Chancellor.
He received an honorary Doctor of Laws at Sheffield University in 1975. Hugh Robson has a lasting memorial in place in George Square, Edinburgh, where the University of Edinburgh named a building on their campus after him.
The building itself was used as a bomb shelter during world war 2, the actual bomb shelter is now a 24-hour computer lab for university students. During the war this building sustained some damage and the university decided it would be best to erect a new building in its place, and subsequently named it the Hugh Robson building.