Joseph Robson was a stonemason, surveyor and engineer. In 1733 he entered the service of the Hudson's Bay Company and worked as a stonemason for three years. He wrote An Account of Six Years Residence in Hudson's-Bay: From 1733 to 1736 and 1744 to 1747 (1752) which depicted the vast importance of the countries about Hudson's-Bay to Great-Britain, on account of the extensive improvements that may be made there in many beneficial articles of Commerce, particularly in the furs and in the whale and seal fisheries and the interested views of the Hudson's Bay Company; and the absolute necessity of laying open the trade, and making it the object of national encouragement, as the only method of keeping it out of the hands of the french.