Edward Robson was born in Durham on 2^ndMarch 1835. Nothing is known of his mother. He was the eldest son of Alderman Robert Robson, a Justice of the Peace and three times Mayor of Durham. Although Robert Robson may himself have had quite humble roots (he was a builder) the home would appear to have been prosperous: Edward was educated at private schools. Robson senior seems to have had a tough and practical streak. He made it a condition of the proposal to send Edward to Durham University that he spend three years (1851-3) as a workman at the bench to gain a practical knowledge of building construction.

Presumably with his father's social and political influence playing a part, Edward was, from 1853 to 1856, articled as a pupil to John Dobson (1787-1865) of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, a leading architect in the Northeast. In this office he met his future partner, John Wilson Walton-Wilson. This was progress, but Robson was more ambitious and got himself a position as an improver in the London office of Sir George Gilbert Scott (1811-1878). This appointment, mainly working on church restorations, was probably the making of him: Sir George Gilbert Scott RA (and sometime President of the RIBA) was the foremost Gothic Revival architect of the time and hugely influential.

Although he had missed out on a university education, Robson did not do without the Grand Tour: 1858 was spent travelling in Italy, France and Germany. On his return, he left Scott and set up chambers of his own with John Wilson Walton-Wilson at Adam Street, Adelphi. Both partners in the firm had northern connections and the firm had a Durham branch as well. This, and presumably his links with Scott, lead directly to his appointment from 1858 to 1864 as Architect to the Dean and Chapter of Durham Cathedral. During this time he was responsible for the restoration of the Galilee, the Chapel of Nine Altars and the Central Tower. Robson prospered. In 1860 he became an Associate of the RIBA (proposed by Scott), moving up to Fellow of the RIBA in 1864. At around this time he married Marian, eldest daughter of Henry Longden, the eldest of a dynasty of iron founders in Sheffield. The marriage appears to have been happy; certainly by 1871 there were five children.

In 1864 Robson moved to Liverpool, his application for the position of Architect and Surveyor to the Corporation successfully backed by three members of the Royal Academy. Here he was in charge of the public buildings and considerable landed estates of the Corporation. This was not a design job; Robson's duties were mainly administrative, including property management and site acquisition. He did, however, design St Anne's Church, St Anne's Street, Liverpool (demolished in 1971), the buildings of Stanley Park, Anfield (still standing) both in the Gothic style and the Municipal Offices, Dale Street, Liverpool (still standing) in "the mixed Italianate-cum-French, not stylistically definable." One of the frustrations of this appointment was that Robson was prohibited from private practice. This changed on his return, supposedly on doctor's advice, to London in 1871. In his son's words:

In 1870, on the passing of the Forster Education Act, my father determined, if he could, to lead the way with regard to Educational Buildings...To this end, in May, 1871, he was found to be installed as the first Architect to the London School Board.

The early period at the Board from 1871 was a busy and seminal moment in Robson's career. As well as working in partnership with John James Stevenson (until 1876), he became a Fellow of the Surveyor's Institution in 1872. For much of 1873 he travelled in America, Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and Holland as part of the research for his book. This influential and well received text on school planning was published in 1874. The years between 1876 and 1884 were spent on a giddying combination of school building and private practice from his offices at Palace Chambers, 9 Bridge Street, Westminster, London. It is difficult to get at precise numbers, but his period at the SBL from 1871 to 1884 saw the construction of the extraordinary figure of 279 schools with a further 32 completed in the following year. Between 1876 and 1885 Robson also appears to have worked with John Whichcord (sometime President of the RIBA), but not in a formal partnership, although Robson did ultimately buy Whichcord's practice. Around 1885 Robson was in the felicitous position of declining offers of a knighthood from both the Prince of Wales and later the Queen herself with the down to earth answer that "Plain Mr Robson is good enough for me."

In late 1884, the position of Consulting Architect to the Education Department fell vacant on the death of Major Rhode Hawkins. Philip Robson perceives his father's appointment as political: "the Liberal Government then in power offered it to my father". Frank Kelsall indicates that a scandal was about to engulf Robson, who had invoiced the SBL twice for the architect's fees of one school. From the start of 1885 until 1902 Robson was in a vastly influential position at the Education Department (responsible for Education in England and Wales). Every new school build required a grant and therefore approval by the Department. Robson's job was to approve and sign off these plans. As he was also Consulting Architect to the Scotch Education Department and the Home Office, he was a busy man. His son's memoir implies that he was signing off about one hundred plans a day (before lunch and private practice).

The Conservative Education Act of 1902 which saw the demise of the School Boards, including the SBL belatedly in 1904, was also the end of Robson's public life. He was aged 67 in any case. Robson's own explanation was that his retirement was due to a "reorganisation". His son transmits a bitterer tale:

...my father was retired suddenly on the grounds that "new measures need new men." At any rate, that was the gist of the answer given in the House of Commons on the subject. My father was less disturbed at the step taken than at the callous way in which it was done, without proper recognition of his faithful twenty years' service to the State. The fact was that he was too strong, fearless and honest a man for the new regime.

Robson had to go without a pension. He appears to have practiced alone from 1903 until 1910 when he went into partnership with J J Gott, until the latter's enlistment at the start of the First World War. Robson was a freemason, a member of the St Stephen's and Arts clubs, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, a member of the Skinners' Company and enjoyed the freedom of the City of London. He gave his hobbies as golf, skating, bicycling and billiards. His son claimed that he was an enthusiastic musician and acquirer of pictures. Robson died of bronchitis at his home, 2 The Paragon, Blackheath, London on 22^ndJanuary 1917 aged 81 years. He was buried in exceptionally inclement weather at Shooter's Hill, London on 24^thJanuary 1917 next to his wife and beneath a headstone of his own design.

At this distance in time it is difficult to get at the personality of Edward Robson. It seems likely, given his son's statements about Robson's motivation for joining the SBL, for his advancement to the Education Department in 1885 and his retirement that Robson was a Liberal. He may have been quite Progressive: Malcolm Seaborne notes his approval of universal elementary education, criticism of public schools and the inadequacy of girls' secondary schooling and analysis of the need for a complete national system of secondary education. He was definitely not an out-and-out Radical, because his son notes that he was a volunteer in the First Lancashire Engineer Volunteers and served as a special constable during the Liverpool riots. Robson was certainly enormously energetic and busy: his volume of work was immense, particularly during his time at the SBL. Only in the verbatim reports in the Wall Brothers case and in his handwritten memoranda on Education Department documents do we hear Robson's own voice. The impression gained is of self-confidence bordering on arrogance. These utterances come across now as terse and impatient. This view is reinforced in his son's obituary, which draws a picture of a strong but difficult personality. On the one hand he appears as "faithful", "strong", "loyal", "fearless", "honest", not given to petty vanity and gifted with a pungent wit both intellectual and spontaneous. On the other he could be direct to the point of tactless, impetuous and inflexible.

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