William Robinson

William Robinson (1784-1853) and James Chater (1779-1829) arrived as BMS missionaries in India on board the Criterion in August 1806, but were ordered to leave during a crackdown on missionary activity by the representatives of the East India Company. Robinson and his wife were originally from Olney. He studied under Sutcliff from June 1804 to July 1805.  After working for a time in Dacca, he settled in Bhutan, Bengal, in March 1810. The Robinson’s left there in 1813, assisting for a time in the missions in Java and Sumatra. Eventually, Robinson returned to Bengal. By the late 1820s he had lost BMS support, but he continued to promote Baptist missions, working in Dacca until 1839. He buried four wives during his time in Sumatra. Apparently Robinson was too political for Fuller’s taste in the tense years prior to the renewal of the East India Charter in 1813. Writing to William Ward on 10 June 1810, Fuller says of Robinson, “His democratical notions of I know not what liberty & equality are utterly unsuitable for a christian missionary.” See Stanley, History, 54-55, 168; Gravett, Three Hundred Years, 27; Cox, History, 1:156, 167, 191-192, 202; Fuller to Ward, MSS. BMS, vol. 1, Angus Library, Regent’s Park College, Oxford; DEB.