Between 1818-19 he was employed as a supercargo by the East India Company in Canton,. He was appointed third Superintendent of British Trade in China alongside Lord Napier and John Francis Davis in December 1833. After Napier's death in 1834, Davis and Robinson moved up to become chief and second superintendents. Robinson became Chief Superintendent on 19January 1835 following the resignation of John Francis Davis with John Harvey Astell and Charles Elliot as second and third superintendents. He maintained a "perfectly quiescent line of policy" during his tenure and reported a "quiet and prosperous routine of trade". To maintain this state of affairs and to avoid the necessity of British ships obtaining port clearance in Macao, in November 1835, Robinson left the British Factory in Canton after announcing that he would henceforth operate from aboard the cutter Louisa moored off Lintin Island outside the Bocca Tigris. British Foreign SecretaryLord Palmerton effectively dismissed Robinson in line with "the intention of His Majesty’s Government to reduce the establishment in China" through a dispatch dated 7June 1836, in which he wrote:
"It, therefore, now becomes my duty to acquaint you, that His Majesty’s Government have decided to abolish at once the office and salary of Chief Superintendent. In communicating to you this decision, I have at the same time to inform you, that your functions will cease from the date of the receipt of this despatch. You will make over. to Captain Elliot all the archives of the Commission; which will, of course, include copies of every despatch, and its inclosures, which you have addressed to this department during the period you have acted as Chief Superintendent.
"The conclusion can hardly be resisted, that to get rid of Sir GEORGE ROBINSON, Lord PALMERSTON abolished the office, with the intention of restoring it for Captain ELLIOT'S benefit with the purpose of enabling British subjects to violate the laws of the country to which they trade. Any loss, therefore, which such persons may suffer in consequence of the more effectual execution of the Chinese laws on this subject, must be borne by the parties who have brought that loss on themselves by their own acts."
Personal life
On 5December 1825, Robinson married Louisa, youngest daughter of Major-Gen. Robert Douglas Diarist Harriet Low recorded on 5April 1832 that Robinson and his wife: "are both six feet tall and no beauty to boast of; very well matched as regards intellect, and not at all troubled by the fashions of the world." The Morning Post reported that Louisa died in London on 9August 1843. He was at that time resident at Furzebrook House in Axminster, Devon. On 7January 1863 the couple's only daughter, Louisa, married John Prideaux Lightfoot, the Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University
