DINWIDDIE, ROBERT (1693-177o), British colonial governor of Virginia, was born near Glasgow, Scotland, in 1693. From the position of customs clerk in Bermuda, which he held in 1727-38, he was promoted to be surveyor-general of the cus toms "of the southern ports of the continent of America," as a reward for having exposed the corruption in the West Indian cus toms service. In 1751-58 he was lieutenant-governor of Virginia. He was energetic in the discharge of his duties, but aroused much animosity among the colonists by exacting heavy fees. It was his chief concern to prevent the French from building in the Ohio valley a chain of forts connecting their settlements in the north with those on the Gulf of Mexico; and in the autumn of 1753 he sent George Washington to Ft. Le Boeuf, a newly established French post at what is now Waterf ord, Pa., with a message demanding the withdrawal of the French from English territory. As the French refused to comply, Dinwiddie in the spring of sent Washington with an armed force toward the forks of the Ohio river "to prevent the intentions of the French in settling those lands." In May Washington encountered a French force at Great Meadows, in what is now southwestern Pennsylvania, and a skirmish followed which precipitated the French and Indian War. Dinwiddie's appeals to the home government, however, re sulted in the sending of General Edward Braddock to Virginia with two regiments of regular troops; and at Braddock's call Din widdie and other colonial governors met at Alexandria, Va., in April 1755, and planned the initial operations of the war. Din widdie's administration was marked by a constant wrangle with the assembly over money matters ; and its obstinate resistance to military appropriations caused him in 1754 and 1755 to urge the home government to secure an act of parliament compelling the colonies to raise money for their protection. In Jan. 1758 he left Virginia and lived in England until his death at Clifton, Bristol, July The Official Records of Robert Dinwiddie, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia (1751-58), published in two volumes, at Richmond, Va., in 1883-84, by the Virginia Historical Society, and edit. by R. A. Brock, are of great value for the political history of the colonies in this period.