Early Days

Abstract

Had Austin Robinson been born in Scotland he could have been described as a son of the manse. He was linked to the Church on both sides of the family. His father, Albert, in later life a canon of Winchester, had been a mathematical scholar at Christ’s College, Cambridge, and a wrangler, before being ordained in 1887 at the age of 24 and spending the next eight years as a curate. His mother was the daughter of a clergyman, the Reverend T. W. Sidebotham, who was vicar at The Bourne near Farnham in Surrey for 33 years. The two met in 1889 at Rownhams near Southampton where Albert was curate and the vicar was an uncle of Edith Sidebotham who often stayed with her aunt and uncle. Albert fell in love with her but, as an impecunious curate, felt unable to take things further. He did, however, invite her brother to stay with him in the hope of getting invited back to the Bourne Vicarage. This worked. Six years later, in 1895, he was presented by his college to the living of Toft and Caldecote near Cambridge and, thus encouraged, he proposed the following year. After a short engagement of ten weeks they were married in November 1896 at The Bourne.