Alfred Farthing Robbins


Sir Alfred Farthing Robbins was a British journalist, political biographer and freemason.
He was initiated in 1888 in Gallery Lodge No. 1928, which catered for members of the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, and in 1901 became Master of that lodge. As President of the Board of General Purposes from 1913 until his death, he was described as "the Prime Minister of English Freemasonry".
London correspondent of the Birmingham Daily Post since 1888, he was president of the Institute of Journalists in 1908, and has been chairman of its Orphan Fund since 1911.
His portrait, painted by Philip Tennyson Cole, presented by the Institute of Journalists in 1931, is kept at Launceston Town Hall. He was a member of the National Liberal Club.
He married Ellen Pitt in 1882, and was the father of Clifton Robbins, the journalist, barrister, and writer of golden age detective fiction.

Works