Robinson, John Beveley

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: Robert E. Saunders, “ROBINSON, Sir JOHN BEVERLEY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 9, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/robinson_john_beverley_9E.html
  • DCB profile notes:
    • Lawyer, politician, and judge; b. 26 July 1791 at Berthier, Lower Canada, second son of Christopher Robinson and Esther Sayre; d. 31 Jan. 1863 in Toronto, Canada West.
    • John Beverley Robinson’s father, a Virginia born loyalist, had served in the Queen’s Rangers in the closing stages of the Revolutionary War. The regiment was evacuated to New Brunswick and then disbanded in 1783. Christopher Robinson the following year married Esther Sayre, the daughter of a well-known loyalist clergyman, and in 1788 the family moved to Quebec, where John Beverley was born three years later. In 1792 they went to Kingston, Upper Canada, where Christopher was appointed surveyor general of the woods and reserves of Upper Canada; in 1794 he was called to the bar.
    • Robinson had never really liked the notoriety of political life; his career on the bench was probably most satisfying because it removed him from politics. He never seems to have thought of power as such; rather he accepted responsibility to govern and to be a public servant. He saw himself as part of the governing class, the “regularly bred,” who must take up his duty. He thought that he acted in a liberal or benevolent way on principles which would preserve and strengthen an essentially good Upper Canadian society. His loyalist background, his education by Strachan, and his experience during the War of 1812 shaped his attitudes fundamentally. Looking back from the 1840s, he argued that the war had given Upper Canadians a sense of identity, a sense of anti-Americanism and of pro-British sentiment. He would long remember that many Upper Canadians had been lukewarm in defence against the United States, and remained suspicious of American-born settlers and those whose politics were “republican.” Indeed, maintenance of the British connection was his major goal, a goal which could be attained only by encouraging immigration from Britain and by establishing British political institutions in Canada. That British political institutions changed during his lifetime made it difficult for him to adjust his thinking.
    • He was also an early advocate of British North American union. From 1823 onwards he saw such a union as preferable to the union of the two Canadas. The control of Canada by its Anglophone majority could only be ensured by bringing the Atlantic provinces into the union. By the 1840s many Upper Canadian Tories shared his views. His loyalism, his Anglicanism, and his distrust of democracy did not make him into a colonial, however. He would visit England often, be friendly with that country’s leading men, and be offered attractive opportunities outside Canada, either in England or in other colonies, but his sense of duty and his love of Upper Canada kept him a Canadian. Indeed, in the last years of his life, he reconciled himself to the concept of responsible government as he saw it working and realized that it was the means by which the British connection could be maintained.
  • Son of Proven Loyalist in Loyalist Directory –https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=7058
  • Find a GRAVE: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/145224599/john_beverley-robinson