William Stevens Robinson

Background

William Stevens Robinson was born in Concord, Massachussets, United States. He was the sixth and last child of William and Martha (Cogswell) Robinson, and a descendant of Jonathan Robinson of Exeter, who died in 1675.

Education

He attended the town school,

Career

After attending the town school, he learned the printer's trade and in 1837 joined his brother in the office of the Norfolk Advertiser of Dedham, a strong temperance paper. In 1839 he became editor of the Yeoman's Gazette, later The Republican, of Concord, a Whig paper, and as an ardent Whig he attended, as delegate, the Whig Convention in Baltimore in 1840. Two years later he became assistant editor of the Lowell Courier and Journal, acting for a time as its Washington correspondent. In 1845 he went to Manchester, to edit The American, but soon returned to the Lowell Courier, in which connection his strong antislavery views began to attract marked attention among the radicals of Massachusetts. His vigorous condemnation of slavery and caustic comments on Massachusetts politics and politicians finally cost him his position, and in 1848 he removed to Boston to succeed Charles Francis Adams as editor of the Boston Daily Whig, later the Boston Daily Republican, which he conducted through the presidential campaign of 1848. The same year he served as secretary of the Free-Soil Convention which met in Worcester. Again, however, his vigorous opinions on slavery and Massachusetts politics cost him his position, and he returned to Lowell to start the Lowell American, which he conducted for nearly four years, becoming recognized as one of the most radical of Massachusetts antislavery journalists. In 1852, and again in 1853, he was elected to the Massachusetts legislature, and in the latter year served as clerk of the constitutional convention. Following the failure of the Lowell American in 1854, he joined the editorial staffs of The Commonwealth and the Boston Telegraph and violently opposed the rising tide of Know-Nothingism in Massachusetts. In 1856 his "Warrington" letters on Massachusetts politics and politicians began to appear in the Springfield Republican and at once attracted state-wide attention because of their thorough knowledge of Massachusetts politics and their frank personal comment on the public men of the state. Similar letters over the pen name "Gilbert" were contributed to the New York Tribune, on which paper Robinson was offered an editorial berth in 1859 which, feeling that his best work could be done in Massachusetts, he refused. The friend of Charles Sumner, John A. Andrew, Henry Wilson, John G. Whittier, and other Massachusetts radicals, he was early associated with the fortunes of the Republican party in the state, and in 1861, on the eve of the Civil War, he aided in editing The Tocsin, a campaign paper "published by an association of Republicans who are in earnest, and who will be heard" ("Warrington" Pen-Portraits, post, p. 94). In 1862 he was chosen as clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives, a position which he held for eleven years, during which he became known as the "Warwick" of Massachusetts politics. In 1863 he was made secretary of the Republican state committee, which important office he occupied until 1868, writing many of the addresses and memorials of the committee during these critical years of war and reconstruction. The strength of Robinson's political power in Massachusetts was most evident, perhaps, in 1871 and 1872 when he successfully led the opposition against Benjamin F. Butler in the latter's efforts to gain the governorship of Massachusetts. It was due to Butler's machinations, he believed, that he finally lost his clerkship in 1873. He then served for a short time on the staff of the Boston Journal, but in 1874 increasing ill health caused him to make a European trip, following which he returned to complete and publish Warrington's Manual (1875), a handbook of parliamentary law.

Politics

His vigorous condemnation of slavery and caustic comments on Massachusetts politics and politicians finally cost him his position, and in 1848 he removed to Boston to succeed Charles Francis Adams as editor of the Boston Daily Whig, later the Boston Daily Republican, which he conducted through the presidential campaign of 1848.

In 1856 his "Warrington" letters on Massachusetts politics and politicians began to appear in the Springfield Republican and at once attracted state-wide attention because of their thorough knowledge of Massachusetts politics and their frank personal comment on the public men of the state.

The strength of Robinson's political power in Massachusetts was most evident, perhaps, in 1871 and 1872 when he successfully led the opposition against Benjamin F. Butler in the latter's efforts to gain the governorship of Massachusetts. It was due to Butler's machinations.

Personality

Quotes from others about the person

• Robinson is described as "a lymphatic, shutin man, smiling only around the mouth, which is carefully covered with hair to hide the smile; short, thick-set, with his head set directly on his shoulders; high forehead; slightly bald; thin hair; ruddy of face; the keenest political writer in America, and the best political writer since 'Junius' "

Connections

On November 30, 1848, he married Harriet Jane Hanson, one of the literary mill girls of Lowell and for many years a leader in the woman suffrage movement in Massachusetts, a cause in which Robinson himself took much interest. They had four children, of whom three survived their father.

He died the following year at his home in Malden, Massachussets, United States

Wife:

Harriet

On November 30, 1848, he married Harriet Jane Hanson, one of the literary mill girls of Lowell and for many years a leader in the woman suffrage movement in Massachusetts, a cause in which Robinson himself took much interest.