Joseph Robinson

Joseph Robinson died at his home, Hawthorndon House, Wynberg, Cape Colony, on 30 October 1929, at the age of 89.

Joseph Benjamin Robinson was the son of Robert John Robinson (1792–1886) and Martha Rozina Strutt. He had five brothers and nine sisters.

He married Elizabeth Rebecca Ferguson, daughter of James Ferguson, on 3 October 1877 in Kimberly, South Africa. She was born 4 November 1859 in Victoria West, and died 30 March 1930 in Muizenberg, South Africa. They had 11 children including Ida, who married the Italian Ambassador to South Africa, Count Natale Teodato Labia the descendants of whom still reside at Robinson's Cape Town home Hawthorndon House

J.B. Robinson's death in 1929 caused a great scandal in South Africa and Britain upon discovery of his will. His personal fortune of £12 million was given to his heirs except one of his daughters, who was only given a mere £2000. He gave nothing to charity. There was a scathing article in the Cape Times after his death.

In the 1920s, political fixer Maundy Gregory, encouraged by Prime Minister David Lloyd George, sold honours to raise money for their political fund. When during the 1922 Birthday Honours, Joseph Robinson, who was known as a war profiteer after being convicted of fraud and fined £500,000 (equivalent to £21.16 million in 2025) whose appeal had been dismissed as recently as November 1921, was nominated for a Barony, for National and Imperial Services, the British public was scandalised. Lord Buxton received the news with "universal astonishment and mystification". According to Geoffrey Wheatcroft Joseph Robinson's skullduggery was also notorious throughout South Africa, as he had been previously fined for defrauding the shareholders of his mining companies. When it was revealed that Robinson had paid Gregory £30,000 (equivalent to £1.27 million in 2025) for his peerage, officially towards Lloyd George's political fund, King George V himself objected, criticising the "questionable circumstances" in which the award had been granted.

The case of Joseph Robinson … must be regarded as little less than an insult to the Crown and to the House of Lords and may, I fear, work injury to the Prerogative in the public mind

During the Parliament debate that followed, Lord Curzon came to also question Robinson's baronetcy of 1908, remarking that it had been granted for services rendered while chairman of a bank that was no longer in existence at the time. In June 1922 under public pressure, the government forced Robinson to reject the honour. Chief Whip F.E Guest went in person to find Robinson at the Savoy Hotel to ask him to withdraw from the Peerage list, even though his name had already been published.

I would wish if I may without discourtesy to yourself and without impropriety, to beg His Most Gracious Majesty's permission to decline the proposal.

The scandal surrounding the issue tarnished the Coalition government's image, and was somewhat responsible for the Conservatives detachment of Lloyd George's Liberals from the party, later in 1922. The general scandal of sale of peerages led to the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.