He was the son of the businessman and canal carriage investor John Robins and his wife Mary Ann Snell, daughter of Richard Snell. His sister Jane Elizabeth Robins married the educator Henry Cook, as his second wife, and was the mother of
Theodore Andrea Cook. She is known, under her married name, as an artist who exhibited at the
Royal Academy, as a book illustrator, and for
silhouettes. Edward Robins attended schools in
Esher,
Derby and London.
Snell & Robins, carriers For a period in the early 1820s, Snell, Robins & Snell were one of the competitors to
Pickford & Co. as Manchester–London carriers. John Robins, who married into the Snell family in 1814, was from a
nonconformist background in
Plymouth, The canal carrier business of Richard Snell moved in 1819 to
City Road Basin. A partnership of those three and John Robins, at West Paddington, was dissolved in 1820, with William Snell withdrawing; and Richard Snell senior then withdrew in 1821. The London Post Office Directory for 1820 mentions Snell, Robins and Snell, canal carriers, based at the White Bear Inn on
Basinghall and 6 & 7, The Wharf, Paddington. The canal carriers Snell & Robins took on Wharf 7 at the City Road Basin in 1823. In 1824 John Robins and Richard Snell were carriers at 87
London Wall. In 1825 they were managers of the London and Manchester Van Association. John Robins withdrew from the partnership on the last day of that year. ==Career==