Book Review
A Book Review Elizabeth Wong
Professor Joseph F. O’Brien, Henry Martyn Robert: Writer of the Rules, An American Hero. Compiled, Edited, and Expanded by Dr. Leonard M. Young, PRP. Independence, Missouri, 2019, National Association of Parliamentarians®, 275pp.
Heroes of the nineteenth century in America include many notable persons. One additional person who should be added to this list is Henry Martin Robert (HMR) (1837-1923).
He wrote Robert’s Rules of Order (now in its 12th Edition) and Parliamentary Law in addition to several other books. His contribution to American society was to improve the process of democracy at the grassroots level. Being taught to understand parliamentary principles and procedure has not only provided the average person with the tools to conduct meetings fairly and efficiently, it has also improved organizational performance. The importance of learning parliamentary principles and procedure cannot be overstated. As the son of three generations of Huguenot pastors beginning with Pastor Pierre Robert, who came to 34 National Parliamentarian • Summer 2022
America in 1686 to “worship God as he chose”, HMR would have undoubtedly heard the biblical verse, Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge” during a church sermon reminding the congregation to remember your past. HMR’s birthplace, Robertville, South Carolina, was named after his great-grandfather and the War for Independence (a.k.a. Revolutionary War) hero John Robert, who served under Swamp Fox General Francis Marion. His son, James Jehu Robert, owned a plantation and was the Minister for the local Baptist church for 50 years. One of his 19 children, Dr. Joseph Thomas Robert, became a physician, an ordained Baptist minister, a college teacher, and president of Burlington University in Iowa. Dr. Robert is reported to have taken on much of the responsibility for educating his three children,
