Robert Arthur "Robin" Donkin, FBA (28 October 1928 – 1 February 2006)[1] was an English historian and geographer who served as a reader in historical geography in the University of Cambridge's Department of Geography in 1990.[2] A fellow of the British Academy, Donkin published works on a wide range of subjects, including Cistercian monasteries, agricultural terracing, the history of pearls and pearl fishing, the Muscovy duck, the Guinea fowl, and the history of spices and aromatics.[3]
Robin Donkin was born in 1928 in the town of Morpeth, Northumberland. He received his education at Jarrow Grammar School, and later studied geography at King's College, Newcastle upon Tyne.[1] At Durham University, Donkin completed his doctorate under M.R.G. Conzen, published later in 1957 as The Cistercian Contribution to the Geography of England and Wales in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries.[1]
Donkin also served in the British Armed Forces as a Lieutenant in the Royal Artillery.[1][4][5][6][7] His National Service postings included Egypt and Jordan, where he saw field work.[1] He was elected King George VI Research Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley in 1955.[1] It was here that he was influenced by the American cultural geographer Carl O. Sauer, and developed interest in agricultural origins and the aboriginal New World.[1] Donkin returned to Britain in 1956, and working at the University of Edinburgh Geography Department for the next two years.[1]
Donkin published a number of papers on Cistercian farming activity, introducing a new geographical dimension to monastic studies.[1] Among his notable contributions to the field of historical geography is a 60-page synthesis on "Changes in the Early Middle Ages", which was contributed by him to the A New Historical Geography of England, published in 1973.[1] Academic interest in Middle America eventually led Donkin to Cambridge University, where he earned a Fellowship at Jesus College, Cambridge, and served as a distinguished historical geographer.[1]
Donkin's work Beyond Price: pearls and pearl-fishing, origins to the Age of Discoveries in 1998 – a work containing a mammoth 60 page bibliography – was published as a memoir of the American Philosophical Society.[1] In 2003, Donkin produced Between East and West: the Moluccas and the traffic in spices up to the arrival of Europeans, a book on maritime explorations in the Atlantic Ocean and the Indian Ocean.[1]
Donkin traveled to North Africa, Middle America, South America, South India, South China and to Chinese Turkestan.[2] His final work was an incomplete analysis of the cultural geography of maize.[2]
The Independent, (London), 10 May 2006 summed up Donkin's life as follows:[1]
Robert Arthur Donkin, geographer: born Morpeth, Northumberland 28 October 1928' King George VI Memorial Fellow, University of California, Berkeley 1955-56' Assistant Lecturer, Department of Geography, Edinburgh University 1956-58' Lecturer, Department of Geography, Birmingham University 1958-70' Lecturer in the Geography of Latin America, Cambridge University 1971–90, Reader in Historical Geography 1990-96 (Emeritus)' Fellow, Jesus College, Cambridge 1972- 96 (Emeritus), Tutor 1975-96' FBA1985' married 1970 Jennifer Kennedy (one daughter)' died Cambridge 1 February 2006.
