I descend from a long line of Scarborough men who passed on the name of William ROBINSON from one generation to the next, right through the seventeenth century and eighteenth centuries (the last one was born in 1791, although by then the family had made its way to London). I have recently discovered in William White's "History, Gazetteer, and Directory of the East and North Ridings of Yorkshire", published in 1840, the following passage in a description of the principal buildings of the town: "Robinson's Almshouse is a small tenement, in Long Westgate, given by Wm Robinson, and lately rebuilt by subscription". William Robinson is a fairly common name, of course. Indeed, my earlier researches through Scarborough parish records suggest that there were at least three or four separate, and fairly prolific, Robinson families living in the town during the period my ancestors were there. These ancestors of mine, however, consisted of ship's masters and ship owners and, from the wills I have traced to date, were people who owned landed property in Scarborough. In other words, they could have had the means to endow an almshouse. I need someone with an intimate knowledge of Scarborough, or someone with access to old records or to contemporary Scarborough or Yorkshire gazetteers (probably circa 1750), to try to identify the William Robinson who founded the almshouse in Long Westgate. Can anyone help? A. Mark Robinson London