City Readers Digital Historic Collections at the New York Society Library

John Robison FRSE LLD (4 February 1739 – 30 January 1805) was a Scottish physicist and mathematician. He was a professor of natural philosophy (the precursor of natural science) at the University of Edinburgh.

A member of the Edinburgh Philosophical Society when it received its royal warrant, he was appointed as the first general secretary to the Royal Society of Edinburgh (1783–98). Robison invented the siren and also worked with James Watt on an early steam car. Following the French Revolution, Robison became disenchanted with elements of the Enlightenment. He authored Proofs of a Conspiracy in 1797—a polemic accusing Freemasonry of being infiltrated by Weishaupt's Order of the Illuminati.

His son was the inventor Sir John Robison (1778–1843).