He served in the
RAF during the
Second World War making models interpreting
aerial photographs. This was when he met
Sir James Mann,
Master of the Armouries at the
Tower of London. Robinson joined the staff of the
Tower Armouries in 1946 as a Temporary Assistant, before rising to Assistant Keeper and finally, in 1970, Keeper of Armour. Robinson was a founder member and president of the
Arms and Armour Society. In 1965, he was elected a Fellow of the
Society of Antiquaries of London. In 1977, he was awarded an
honorary MA by the
University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Between 1967 and 1969, he (a practical
armourer) worked with Charles Daniels to interpret and reconstruct the Roman armour nowadays known as '
lorica segmentata'. He produced a series of reconstructions of the two sub-types of armour from the Roman site at
Corbridge and one from
Newstead in time for them to be exhibited at the 1969
Congress of Roman Frontier Studies held in
Cardiff. His work on the armour featured in one of his best-known books,
The Armour of Imperial Rome. Published in 1975 by
Lionel Leventhal at the Arms and Armour Press, it included line illustrations by his friend,
Peter Connolly. Robinson's system of categorizing
Roman helmets has been widely adopted in the UK and USA but never really found favour in Europe. Robinson was not only known for Roman armour, since he worked on an
exhibition of
Japanese armour at the Tower Armouries and subsequently wrote two books on the subject. He was also an authority on Native American artefacts and was responsible for the production of the replica of the revised reconstruction of the
Sutton Hoo helmet In 1978 he teamed up with
Ronald Embleton to produce an illustrated booklet entitled ''What the Soldiers Wore on Hadrian's Wall
for the Newcastle upon Tyne publisher Frank Graham. A second, posthumous, volume by the pair appeared in 1980 from the same publisher and was entitled The Armour of the Roman Legions''. Robinson was married with two daughters. He died in
Guy's Hospital on 15 January 1978, aged 57. ==Notes==