The son of Theophilus and Stella (nee Ansell) Robin, Charles Ernest Robin was born in Prospect Village, South Australia (now the City of Prospect). After completing his secondary education in the early 1880s he won a scholarship to study at the University of Adelaide, and went on to publish a number of works, including poetry. His larger publications are The Scribbler's Scrap Book (1893), which comprises essays on English writers including Shakespeare and Kipling, and The Clairaudient (1896), a slightly supernatural novel about telepathy.
Richard Neylon notes that Robin taught in Sydney schools during the 1890s before making an ill-fated decision to work as assistant master at Queens College, HObart, in 1897. Before the year's end he summarily dismissed and later sued for breach of contrac. According to the Launceston Examiner a pupil testified that Robin had told pupils: 'They got their social ideas from cobblers' sons and washer women and they all had a convict taint in their blood; that an hypnotic influence had been at work in the school which he was going to oppose by an entirely opposite influence of clairvoyancy.' And furthermore: 'You do not know how to treat cultured gentlemen brought up in one of the best families; a better man than your principal.' Despite conducting his own case in his academic gown he lost.
