Thomas Robins


Thomas Robins Jr. (September 1, 1868 – November 4, 1957) was an American inventor and manufacturer.

In 1891, Robins was a salesman for a conveyor belt company in eastern USA. One of his largest clients was Thomas Edison and his Edison Ore-Milling Company in Ogdensburg, New Jersey. Edison was one of, if not the first to use conveyors for moving hard rock. Conveyor belts at the time were canvas plies with rubber between the plies and did not have top or bottom rubber covers. Edison, whose mine relied on high volume conveyors to process his low grade ore, noticed when the top canvas ply wore through, the rubber between the plies lasted longer than the canvas. He asked his supplier (Robins) to build him a belt that had rubber above the plies (top cover). But Robins company refused. So Robins went to this belt competitor who did build the “special” product. The belt lasted much longer for Edison and Robins got fired. Working for the other belt company, Robins and Edison made many other improvements to belt conveyors including the 3 roll troughing idler. Edison patented a few items that were never commercialized but left many of the innovations with Robins. Based on these inventions, Robins started the Robins Conveying Belt Company and subsequently the Robins New Conveyor Company.

His conveyor belt received the grand prize at the Paris Exposition in 1900, and first prizes at the Pan-American Exposition and Saint Louis Exposition..

Robins died on November 4, 1957, at the Nestledown Convalescent Home in Stamford, Connecticut, aged 89. Remnents of his companies continued into the 21st century as Hewitt Robins and Robins Engineers.


The First Belt Conveyor Engineering Book

Thomas Robns Jr and the Robins Conveying Belt Company published the first known belt engineering handbook in 1917, “Handbook of Conveyor Practice”. We are proud to say we currently own 4 copies.

Included were many innovtions in bulk material handling Robins began developing with Thomas Edison. And many engineering principals were publsihed for the first time including capacity tables and power calculations. It is not clear if they were developed by Robins or others.

But also included were several ideas Robins and his team were promoting as the handbook was as much for advertising as engineering. Some machines were described that had never actually been built. We understand this handbook was widely distributed around the world. One story we have heard is that engineers in South Africa were not aware some of these things were only ideas and, thinking they were well used technologies in far away parts of the world, built and used some of these machines for the first time. Starting a trend of mining innovation in South Africa that continues to this day.

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