Sir Stanley Robinson was an English numismatist and Keeper of the Coins and Medals Department at the British Museum. Robinson was born in 1887 and educated at Clifton College and Christ Church, Oxford. He joined the British Museum in 1912, immediately joining the Coins and Medals Department, but was forced to leave two years later due to the outbreak of the First World War. Robinson served in France, where he was wounded and transferred to the Home Office. He soon returned to England, where he continued to work at the museum.
Robinson specialized in ancient coins and from his first days at the British Museum he began to publish extensively. He wrote a number of articles for numismatic journals, and in 1931 he published the first volume of the large-scale Sylloge Nummorum Graecorum project. The project, founded by the British Academy, was originally conceived to catalog public and private collections of Greek coins in the country. Later, other countries joined the project, and today more than 120 volumes have been published within the framework of the project.
Robinson received the post of Keeper of the Department of Coins and Medals in 1949, and later began teaching numismatics at Oxford University. Around that time, he was approached by the English financier of Armenian origin Calouste Gulbenkian, who collected works of art - his collection formed the basis of the art museum in Lisbon. As a child, Gulbenkian was interested in numismatics, bought his first coins at the bazaar in Istanbul, and eventually became the owner of one of the largest collections of ancient Greek coins. Robinson helped him choose rare specimens.
In 1955, Robinson retired, but continued to provide consultations. Part of his collection is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford, and coins stored in the British Museum are also presented here.
Source:
britishmuseum.org
