Mansergh Dias Robinson, railway engineer, was the son of the civil engineer Thomas Robinson and his wife Martha Anne, born Wood. He was educated in Shropshire, England. From 1885 he was employed for six years in the survey and construction of the Puerto Cabello and Valencia Railway in Venezuela. In 1891 he took up a post for the Imperial Bank of Persia (now Iran) in charge of the construction of a major road from Tehran to Ahwaz on the Persian Gulf. In 1893 in Tehran he married Norah Neame, with whom he had two sons and a daughter.
Robinson's training for membership of the (British) Institution of Civil Engineers included work on the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway, and the Swindon and Cheltenham Extension Railway. He was elected a member in 1906.
Meanwhile he began working for the Cape Government Railways in February 1899. From 1903 to 1906 he was stationed at Indwe, Eastern Cape, then in Cape Town (1907) and later in George (1909). Among others he was in charge of the construction of the Tsomo River bridge and the Indwe-Maclear railway line, as well as the survey of the Darling Hopefield line. In 1903 he was a member of the newly established Cape Society of Civil Engineers and in 1910 served on its council. During these years he contributed two papers to the society's Minutes of Proceedings: "Notes of the erection of Tsomo River Bridge" (1905, Vol. 3) and "Railway transition curves" (1909, Vol. 7).
In August 1910, a few months after the formation of the Union of South Africa, Robinson was appointed as new construction engineer in the South African Railways and Harbours, stationed at its headquarters in Johannesburg. At this time the Cape Society of Civil Engineers changed its name to the South African Society of Civil Engineers. Robinson remained a member of the society, served on its council for at least 1913, and was elected president for 1918. In December 1920 he succeeded R.C. Wallace as Director of Railways in South West Africa (now Namibia), stationed in Windhoek. During his career he superintended the building of over 3000 kilometers of railway line.
Robinson's work in southern Africa was followed by a consultancy for the Tharsis Sulpher and Copper Company in Spain. He then retired and lived for some time in Surrey, England, before settling in Llangollen, North Wales, where he died.
