Joseph Robinson

3 December 1920

"It's a Boy" James Robinson announced to his five year old son James Henry, affectionately nicknamed Jimmy, as he lifted his two year old daughter Ethel in to his arms, "You have a baby brother."

Joseph Robinson was the forth child to James and Ethel (Soulsby Blackett).  His eldest brother Ernest he who lived for only one year he would never have the pleasure of meeting, while James and Ethel would be his initial companions until he turned four when brother Thomas would arrived followed in 1928 by Edwin.  

Born in Sunderland District General hospital Joe as he would become was raised in Pallion while his mother worked as a general servant, his father worked as a shipyard plater.  

The success of the shipyards made Sunderland the largest shipbuilding town in the world.  The work was labour intensive and often dangerous, the men of these shipyards were highly skilled craftsmen even with the inclement weather the northeast often provided.  Sunderland held this honour for 130 years from the Napoleonic War years (1801 – 1818) when the number of shipyards on the River Wear grew from 9 to 15, then by the 1860’s there were no less than 58 yards building wooden ships.

By the mid twentieth century, when the town produced more than a quarter of the nation's total tonnage of merchant and naval ships for World War Two, Sunderland was widely regarded as the largest shipbuilding town in the world.

James was employed at Doxford's which was on the south side of the river Wear in the Pallion area of the town. Wm. Doxford & Sons Ltd. had founded their business in 1840 on another yard on the upper reaches of the River Wear before acquiring in 1857 the site at Pallion for the construction and composite of iron sailing ships and steamers. 

James would remain with Doxford's for fifty three years following in his father (James Henry Robinson. 1866 ~ ?) a Brass Finisher from the Tyne Dock, Newcastle and his grandfather (Henry Robinson 1834 ~1891) who was a second engineer (SS Esk) and shipyard labourer from Blackburn, Lancashire.  

All of the Robinson boys would find their own trade as they grew in to young men. 

How it all begins

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They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

The lasting memory of my childhood weekends is waking before dawn on a Saturday morning to the smell of sweet brewed coffee.  I would dress in my warmest clothes and meet my grandad, Joe in the kitchen of my grandparents two bedroom council house.  

He would be dressed smartly as he always was, trousers shirt and tie everyday without fail, his jet black hair with only the hint of grey in the sideboards glistening with Brylcreem  in the style he always wore in every memory and photo I  have.  He would put on his big brown donkey jacket and pack a bag with a flask of hot white coffee with sugar, two plastic cups, a biscuit each, usually Kit Kats and then we would head off in his small ford fiesta. 

The drive to the beach seemed to take an age in childhood, in reality it's about a fifteen minute car journey.  We would park at what used to be known as the block yards, now it's a housing estate and and marina.  

There used to be a small car park looking out on to the beach.  The docks were to the right, with a small walkway that led to the Pilots house, he was the officer who saw the boats in to dock.  We would leave the car walk to the pilots house and turn head down on to the beach.  

Sometimes we would talk about the sea, about what the boats carried and about what shells were which. Sometimes there would just be silence.  As a child I never really understood what that silence meant but I instinctively knew it was important, to him it was something he needed something that even though he was standing there with me it took him away to some memory I was not party to, 

At six year old you don't really question silence you tend more towards play. I can remember running ahead of him down the beach in search of shells, stopping every now and then to look back. I can still see him now standing on the shore line gazing out to sea watching the waves roll towards the sand, then slowly retreating back again.  He never explained what he was thinking and I never asked, some days I wish the me that I am now could be the one on the sand looking back, walking back and asking him what he was thinking.....

As I grew older I had so many questions to ask my grandfather and in his own way he answered them. But his answers were always tempered and I knew it. 

After he died when I was 16 I met with his brother my Great Uncle Edwin.  He had more elaborate stories to tell me of the life my grandfather had led. This made me curious as to what stories had remained untold.

A few years ago I started researching my grandfather's past this blog will tell the story of what I found out and illustrate how I imagine certain events may have happened.