Successful Shell executive and owner of a Devonshire manor
SILVAN ROBINSON, who has died aged 94, made his career at Shell, ultimately as president of the Shell International Trading Company (Sitco), and was the diligent owner of Edge Barton, the ancient Devonshire manor once occupied by Dorothy Wadham, foundress of Wadham College, Oxford.
Led by Robinson in the 1980s, Sitco became finder of the most competitive crude supplies on the most flexible terms. A state-ofthe-art trading room was set up at Shell Centre in London; and by widening its range of suppliers and customers, Sitco saw its crude oil portfolio double in size under his presidency.
At Edge Barton, he renewed the connection with Wadham College, offering accommodation to postgraduates during university vacations and entertaining the Warden and fellows to a feast to mark the 400th anniversary of the college’s founding in 1610.
Michael Silvanus Robinson, always known as Silvan, was born in Winchester on September 28 1927 to Cyril and Molly (née Sealy). His father taught Greek and Latin at Winchester College and, as C E Robinson, wrote a string of readable books about ancient Greece and Rome.
Silvan and his sister Nathalie grew up on the housemaster’s side of the Winchester boys’ boarding house, Trant’s, which their parents ran. He was sent to the Pilgrims’ School, Winchester Cathedral’s choir school, as the first non-chorister to be enrolled there, and then to Marlborough.
An able classicist and a good ball-games player, as captain of cricket he led Marlborough against Rugby (the victors) at Lord’s. “M S Robinson,” reported The Times, “played the bowling with a fair confidence [and] was out at 63.”
After winning the top classical scholarship to Oriel College, Oxford, Robinson chose to do his National Service before going up, serving ( glumly) in the Indian Army, though only in England, then in the Royal Army Educational Corps.
He took a First in Greats, but came 17th in a competition for 16 places in the Foreign Office entrance exam. Stumped as to what to do next, and engaged to be married, he was offered a trainee position at Shell through a family friend.
With his new wife June
(née Wood), an Oxford contemporary, in 1955 Robinson sailed for Brazil, his first overseas posting with Shell. Lengthy spells in the US and Nigeria followed, and then a routine of frequent overseas business trips from London.
In the mid-1960s he worked on developing Shell’s relationships around the world, mostly constructing and operating refineries, and throughout the 1970s he travelled to and from the Middle East, negotiating new agreements, chiefly in Iran.
After retirement from Shell, Robinson helped to set up, and later sell, a small hi-tech company providing analytic tools for oil and gas company traders; and he chaired the Energy and Environmental Programme at the Royal Institute of International Affairs, Chatham House.
In 1998 he and his wife rescued from impending closure Westminster Classic Tours, a company specialising in gulet cruises along the Aegean coast of Turkey. He kept the company going for 20 years until adverse regional conditions made it unviable.
On trips to Turkey, he came across a number of ateliers producing first-rate reproductions of 16th- and 17th-century Iznik ceramics. He began importing these to Britain, and selling them through museums, including the Victoria & Albert, and to design companies such as Alidad.
He was himself a gifted painter of still life and landscape, for which the country around Edge Barton offered rich material.
A kindly, hospitable man, Robinson retained his considerable mental faculties to the last. He was appointed CBE in 1988.
Silvan Robinson is survived by his wife June, whom he married in 1954, and by their three sons and twin daughters.