Robert (Robin) Arthur Humphreys was born on 6 June 1907. He received his early education at Lincoln School and at Peterhouse, Cambridge. He then stayed on at Cambridge to obtain his BA (1929) but moved to the United States in 1930 for a two-year term as Commonwealth Fund Fellow at the University of Michigan. He received his Ph.D. in 1932. He returned to Britain in 1932 to become Assistant Lecturer in American History at University College London (UCL) and was promoted to Lecturer in 1935 and then became the first Professor of Latin American History in 1948, a post that he held until his retirement in 1974.
Humphreys' other commitments included being: honorary secretary of the Royal Historical Society between 1953 and 1955 (elected President in 1961); member of the University Grants Committee on Latin American Studies, 1962-64; member of the UCL Advisory Committee on Latin American Studies from 1962 to 1965, and Director of the Institute of Latin American Studies from 1965. He received an O.B.E in 1946. He was made a Commander of the Rio Branco, Brazil (1972) and received the Machado de Assis Medal from the Academia Brasileira de Letras (1974). He died in 1999.
From the guide to the Humphreys, Professor Robert Arthur, 1933-1984, (Senate House Library, University of London)
