Bio:Sir Harry Perry Robinson

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Sir Harry Perry Robinson was a journalist, author, naturalist, and photographer. One of six children by Julian Robinson, a chaplain in the East India Company, and Harriett (Woodcock) Robinson, he was born in Lahore, India on November 30, 1859, but raised in Cheltenham, England. In 1883, after completing his education at Westminster School and Christ Church, Oxford, he immigrated to the United States. He tried prospecting for gold out west, but went broke and turned to journalism as had his two brothers: Philip Stewart Robinson (1847–1902) and E. Kay Robinson (1857-1928). From 1887 to 1900 he produced and edited The Northwestern Railroader and then, after acquiring it, The Railway Age. In 1891 he married Mary Mowry from Minneapolis, MN. Later they were divorced, and after remarriage he fathered a son, John Bradstreet Robinson. In 1896, he helped manage Republican William McKinley's successful presidential campaign. In 1900 he returned to England to become a special correspondent for the London Times. In 1915 he was chosen by the British government to be the official war correspondent for The Times and the Daily News. He covered World War I from beginning to end, and for his efforts was granted the French Chevalier Legion of Honor (1919) and knighted by King George V (1920). By the end of his career, he had published 20 works (including a joint collection of short stories, 2 novels, 2 books on photography, 2 on animals, 4 on railroads, and 5 on World War I). At the age of 71, he died in London, on December 21, 1930.