Robert was born in Dublin and educated at Bristol Grammar School from where he won a Rustat Exhibition in Classics to Jesus College, Cambridge. After graduating in 1961 and obtaining a Certificate in Education he was appointed Classics Master at Sevenoaks School, Kent. Five years later he moved to Methodist College Belfast where he held a number of posts including Head of Classics, Senior Resident Master and Senior Vice-Principal. From 1976 he also acted as teaching assistant at Queen’s University, first in Ancient History and then in Classical Greek. In 1987, a switch to teaching assistant in Byzantine Greek led on to the Dumbarton Oaks Typikon Project for which he translated five large typika. In 1995 he was awarded a Dr M. Alwyn Cotton Foundation Fellowship to work on the Evergetis Synaxarion and was made a Senior Honorary Research Fellow of Queen’s University. After retiring from Methodist College he completed a PhD on the Hypotyposis of Timothy for the monastery of the Theotokos Evergetis and in 2000 was appointed Assistant Director of the newly created Institute of Byzantine Studies at the University. He retired from this post in July 2004.