Finch Robinson

Finch Robinson is a Royal Marine aboard HMS Terpsichore. His nickname is Birdy. He is in Corporal Johnson's squad and is a player character belonging to Sharpie.

Family
Father: Joseph Robinson (thatcher) (age 48)

Mother: Beatrix Robinson (housewife) (age 44)

Siblings: Garret Robinson (journeyman shoemaker) (age 24), Eleanor Maggody (nee Robinson) (age 20), Larch Robinson (apprentice ostler) (age 18), Catherine 'Kitty' Robinson (age 15)

Personality and Appearance
Standing an average five feet five inches tall, Robinson has a very English look about him, with blond hair and blue eyes, both indications of Saxon ancestry. He is most often to be found wearing his Marine's uniform, though with a sailor's checked shirt in place of the plain white linen shirt issued by the Quartermaster's stores at Chatham.

He is friendly and only lacks confidence in certain aspects of his duty because he is a relatively inexperienced Marine; HMS Terpsichore is his first ship. He carries out orders smartly and to the best of his ability and is not afraid of getting his hands dirty when he needs to.

He can be considered a slow learner, but once he has learned something, it sticks and he will retain that knowledge for probably the rest of his life. He learns much better by doing something than by having it explained to him over and over. He can read, though slowly, and has not progressed very far when it comes to writing beyond being able to write his own name.

He is a little too fond of drink to always be completely sober, but tries not to be drunk when he knows he will be going on duty, and is self-aware enough to realise that he will need to stay sober if he is ever to earn and retain an NCO's chevrons, something he very much wants to do if he can.

Background
Universally known as Birdy, from the combination of his first name Finch and surname 'robin-son', Robinson was born in Margaretting Tye, a small hamlet in Essex between Ingatestone and Margaretting itself. Due to the hamlet's rural location, it would be natural to assume that Robinson had spent his working life as a farm labourer. In fact, he had recently completed his apprenticeship to a joiner and not long struck out on his own as a journeyman joiner, finding himself in the county town of Chelmsford where he fell in with a recruiting party of Royal Marines from the Chatham Division, based in Kent.

Having never previously had anything to do with the military, training came as a complete shock to Robinson, who occasionally found himself zigging instead of zagging. After several weeks, however, something finally clicked and things began to make sense. He suddenly knew when to move, when to stand still, and when to answer questions asked him by the training NCOs, and he began to look far more like a soldier than the half-empty sack of flour he had previously been informed he resembled.

Once he was deemed a fully-trained Marine ready for duty, he was sent out to his first duty posting aboard the Nore guardship, HMS Sandwich. Although no longer considered to be a man-o'-war, she was definitely not in dry-dock nor yet tied up alongside, but rode at anchor in the cold grey-green waters of the Nore anchorage at the mouth of the Medway. It was good training for Robinson to begin finding his sea-legs, despite the fact that he succumbed to seasickness once or twice before growing accustomed to the feel of a moving deck under his feet.

Returning to Headquarters after a few months aboard Sandwich, Robinson's name was entered onto the roster for sea-duty, eventually reaching the top of the list when HMS Terpsichore was recommissioned for service in the Mediterranean and off the Portuguese coast.

He has now been part of Terpsy's detachment for about six months, and has found his feet. He is a little jealous that Thompson got promoted into the previously-open second Corporal's berth, but realises that the older man has been a marine for far longer, and hopes that he will one day be able to earn promotion himself, though he is aware that he will have to keep his nose clean and not get in trouble through drink if he is to earn, and keep, a set of NCO's chevrons.