ata yt 
= 
151 
the ground, bore to the thumb bone. Did some wag of a grave- 
digger, accustomed to the sight of such gruesome fragments of 
humanity, recognise the likeness, and give the name to the old cross? 
WILLIAM ROBINSON. 
Witt1aM Rosrnson, a great benefactor of Penrith in the 17th 
century, well deserves our notice. Of William Robinson, grocer, 
of St. Dunstan-in-the-East, London, and his munificent benefaction 
of £55 a year through the Grocers’ Company to Penrith, for 
charitable, educational, and religious purposes, every Penrithian 
knows much; but of the connection of the benefactor with the 
town, or the cause of his great regard for it, nothing is known 
beyond a vague tradition mentioned by Dixon in his book on 
Penrith charities, to the effect that when William Robinson was 
going as a boy to London, to try his fortune there, he was helped 
by kind persons in Penrith. 
On looking through an old Survey of London, I came across an 
account of benefactions in the hands of the Grocers’ Company; and 
looking for William Robinson’s benefaction to Penrith, was surprised 
to find no mention of it. There was, however, one endowment 
by William Robinson mentioned, of £20 a year to the Grammar 
School at Topcliffein Yorkshire. Now then, I thought, some clue 
to William Robinson may be found, so I drew a bow at a venture, 
and wrote a note of enquiry to the vicar or rector of Topcliffe, and 
received a courteous reply, that it was a fact that the Grammar 
School there received an annual payment of twenty pounds a year 
from the Grocers’ Company from the benefaction of William Rob- 
inson, but of William Robinson himself nothing whatever was 
known ; thus the beneficent grocer becomes doubly mysterious. 
William Robinson’s will in favour of Penrith is dated 1660, but 
_ the bequest was not to accrue until after the death of his widow, 
_ but when that took place does not appear. The churchwardens’ 
old book takes no notice of it; for although the churchwardens 
_ received and distributed the money, they did not enter either 
teceipt or distribution in the church book, at least for about eighty 
years after it first came in, 
