After his father died in 1960, Robin took the title of 2nd Viscount Maugham. His maiden speech in the House of Lords on slavery alerted the world to the continued existence of human trafficking. From this came his book The Slaves of Timbuktu which was given a dramatic edge with the purchase of an African slave to prove the truth of his researches
In an interview before he died in 1981 Robin Maugham said "I'm cheerful about life because I have never been afraid of death. After all I have had four tanks shot from under me. I was buried alive in the Agadir earthquake for five hours with every rib in my body broken and on one of my trips to Africa I nearly died of food poisoning."