Frank Bruce Robinson

Material concerning the early life of Dr. Frank Robinson is quite sketchy and necessarily biased as one must rely totally on Robinson's own accounts. He says he was born on July 5, 1886 in New York City; his brother Sydney and others say he was born in a small village in Buckinghamshire, England ( Latah Journal (Deary, Idaho) August 12, 1937). Stratford-on-Avon and Henley-in-Arden, Warwickshire, are also mentioned as birthplaces in later articles on Robinson. His mother was Hannah Rosella Coope, his father the Reverend John Henry Robinson. In March 1888 his father became pastor of the Long Crendon Baptist Chapel after "a long visit in America. " Long Crendon is a small village with a population of less than 100, situated about 12 miles southwest of Aylesbury, at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, near the River Thames, in Buckinghamshire. When visiting Long Crendon in 1934 Frank was shown a book containing the history of the Long Crendon Baptist Chapel which included the reference to the American visit of his parents; however, Rev. Robinson stated he was never in America.

After a few years in Long Crendon the family moved to Halifax, a small town southwest of Leeds in southwest Yorkshire, known for its cloth trade. It was here in about 1894 that Hannah Robinson died--Frank said he was eight when his mother died. Soon Rev. Robinson moved his four boys a few miles to the southeast to the industrial town of Huddersfield, where he soon remarried. Frank claimed his step-mother, Ellen Haigh, was very cruel and often beat him and his brother Sydney. Upon returning to the house one day Frank caught her beating Arthur (aged 10) and became so angry he turned on her and beat her. As a result of this insolence his father forced him to join the British Navy (he was 13 or 14 at the time), but he didn't like the navy so schemed to get a medical discharge. He returned to the family home briefly, but was soon sent, with Sydney, to Canada. This was, according to Frank, in 1900 (the boys would have been 14 and 12) ; Sydney said it was 1902. After arriving in Montreal the two boys found their way to Ontario where both obtained farm work. At this point their paths seem to have separated. Sydney died in Montreal in 1944 or 45, the youngest brother, Leonard, was killed in World War I, and at the time of Frank Robinson's death in 1948 his brother Arthur was on the crew of an English freight boat ( The Psychiana Bulletin, May 1952, p. 7).

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