Robinson Elsdale (1744 - 1783)

Born 1744 in England

Husband of Ann (Gibbins) Elsdale — married 31 Mar 1779 in Pinchbeck, Lincolnshire, England

Died 15 Oct 1783 at about age 39 in Surfleet, Lincolnshire, England

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Biography

Robinson was christened on December 25, 1744.

He joined the Royal Navy and went to sea in 1756 at the age of 12. He left the Navy by his late teens, signing on with a privateer. He later became the captain of a ship, and engaged in both privateering and merchant activities (including transporting coal, the Greenland whale fishery, the African slave trade). He retired from the sea in 1779.

Robinson married Ann "Nancy" Gibbins on March 31, 1779 and had two sons, Samuel and Robinson, both of whom went to Oxford and became Anglican priests.

He wrote his memoirs for his wife. They were handed down in the family and later plagiarized by Frederick Marryat in The Privateersman (1846).

Sources

• Wikipedia page
• John Molson's Wikipedia page
• Douglas Hunter, 2001. Molson: The birth of a business empire. Toronto: Viking.