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of the Institution of Civil Engineers, of which body he was one of the 

 few Honorary Members. He received the Bessemer Gold Medal of 

 the Iron and Steel Institute in 1877, and, in 1889, the Prince of 

 Wales, on the recommendation of the Council, awarded him the 

 Albert Medal of the Society of Arts. The notification of the honour 

 reached him on his death- bed, and he received it with the charac- 

 teristic remark, almost his last, " My work is done." 



W. C. R-A. 



Admiral Sie Robert Spencer Robinson, K.C.B., was the youngest 

 son of the late Venerable Sir John Robinson, Archdeacon of Armagh. 

 Born in January, 1809, he entered the Navy 6th December, 1821, 

 served in the boats of the "Sybille" in an affair with pirates in 1826, 

 and became a Lieutenant in 1830. He attained the rank of Commander 

 in 1838, and that of Captain in November, 1840. After commanding 

 in the latter rank H.M.S. "Arrogant," "Colossus," and "Royal 

 George" on foreign service, he was Captain of the Steam Reserves at 

 Plymouth and Portsmouth for four years, until he became a Rear- 

 Admiral, in 1860. He was a Commissioner to enquire into the 

 management of the Royal Dockyards in the same year, and was 

 appointed Controller of the Navy on 7th February, 1861, an office 

 he held until 1871. The latter three years of this period he was also 

 a Lord of the Admiralty. He retired in 1871, and died on the 

 27th July, 1889. He was the author of a treatise on the Marine 

 Steam Engine. Sir Spencer was at the head of the constructive 

 department of the Admiralty during a period of momentous change, 

 when iron was being introduced in place of wood ; the powers of the 

 steam engine were being rapidly developed, and armour-plating was 

 becoming a necessary protection to the battle ship. Having already 

 profited by a scientific training, superior to that which in his day was 

 common among naval officers, in one of the intervals of his naval 

 employment by the Admiralty, he found an opportunity of entering 

 the marine engine works of the late Mr. Robert Napier, on the 

 Clyde, and there practically acquired the art of using engineering 

 tools and of conducting factory work — acquirements which proved 

 invaluable to him afterwards during his superintendence of the 

 Steam Reserves, and subsequently of H.M. Dockyards. His service 

 at the Admiralty, as Controller of the Navy, was distinguished by a 

 combination of ability and devotion to duty well adapted to accom- 

 plish the solution of the great naval problems which it was his lot to 

 grapple with, and indeed to solve. It was due to his influence, and 

 largely to his initiative, that the British Navy became possessed of a 

 fleet of iron-built armoured ships long before the necessity for giving 

 up wood-built ships of that class was realised in other countries. He 

 similarly anticipated foreign navies by the early introduction of the 



