Robert Henry Lamborn was born on October 29, 1835 or 1836, in Chester, Pennsylvania.

He was a metallurgist, engineer, and collector. He studied mining and metallurgy at the University of Geissen, Germany where he obtained his Ph.D. degree. He also took a course at the École des Mines, Paris, returning to the U.S in the early 1860s. He engaged in the railway business in Pennsylvania, and subsequently became interested in the construction of railways in southwestern states, and was an active promoter and large owner of the Mexican Central Railway. He also served as secretary of the American Iron and Steel Association. Through his enterprises he amassed a fortune and retired from active business about 1887, devoting himself to scientific and literary studies. He collected thousands of objects from six continents pertaining to fine art, history, ethnology, biology, geology, and mineralogy. He traveled constantly and never owned a home, staying in luxury hotels throughout the U.S. and Europe. That was the reason for donating his collections to various museums, e.g., the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History, New York, the Pennsylvania Museum and School of Industrial Art (now the Philadelphia Museum of Art), the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, and the newly founded Penn Museum. Lamborn helped found the Penn Museum as a vice president of the fundraising body known as the Archaeological Association. He requested that the donated objects be displayed to teach visitors about the history of human development and the diversity of cultures.

He died unmarried on January 14, 1895, in New York City, New York.