Mrs Wren Robinson first went to South Africa in 1928, where she worked as a geographer teacher in Johannesburg. While living in England in the 1960s she and her husband, Patrick Robinson, became interested in Lesotho through their involvement in a project organised by the Esher Branch of 'Freedom from Hunger'. They visited Lesotho in 1964 and 1965, and decided to settle there in 1966. The Robinsons spent the next ten years in Southern Africa, at first in Lesotho, and from 1971 at Melmouth in Zululand. They returned to the United Kingdom in 1976, but paid a further visit to Lesotho in 1979. Mr Robinson died in May 1980. Mrs Robinson revisited Lesotho in 1981. She began work on an autobiographical narrative intended to link her collection of articles and papers together, but abandoned the project after drafting some introductory material.