Joseph Robinson

Life & Legacy

Sir Joseph Benjamin Robinson, 1st Baronet (3 August 1840 – 30 October 1929) was a South African gold and diamond mining magnate and Randlord.
Mayor of Kimberley, Northern Cape in 1880, which he represented in the Cape parliament for four years, chairman of the Robinson South African Banking Corporation Co, Ltd and of numeral gold mines in the Transvaal Colony, he was convicted in 1921 of fraud and fined half a million pounds. He is best remembered as having paid political fixer Maundy Gregory £30,000 (equivalent to £1.27 million in 2025), towards Prime Minister Lloyd George’s political fund, in exchange for a peerage. After the King personally complained and under public pressure, the government forced Robinson to reject the appointment. What became known as the Honours Scandal was one of the reason for the passing of the British Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925.