Ralph Robinson, educated at Stamford School, Lincolnshire and Corpus Christi College, Oxford, had been a classmate of William Cecil, now Lord Burghley, chief adviser to Queen Elizabeth.

Graduating Bachelor of Arts in 1540, and elected fellow of his college Corpus in June 1542, he had supplicated for the degree of Master of Arts. in March 1544.

Coming to London, he had obtained the livery of the Goldsmiths' Company, and a small post as clerk in the service of his early friend, Cecil.

From a poor background, he was long hampered by the poverty of the rest of his family.

Sixteen years after the execution of Sir Thomas More, Robinson translates More’s Utopia, published in Latin in 1516.

In the first edition of Robinson’s translation, published in 1551, he dedicates the Foreword to Burghley, alluding to their school days together.