Hello! I am looking for some official document showing the birth date and / or birth place of the actress and dramatist Gertrude Louisa Robins (aka Gertrude Robins aka Mrs. Charles Dawson). When she married the artist Charles Edwin Dawson in 1906 (in Holborn / London), she was 26 years old. She died on December 24, 1917 in Shotter Mill, Surrey.
There is some probability that she is identical with Gertrude Louisa Robins, the cousin of my great-grandmother, born Feb 05, 1880 in Buckhurst Hill, Chigwell, Essex, England.
A lot of things fit, e.g., the (approx.) year of birth, the name of both fathers (John Robins), the profession of both fathers (merchant), both mothers are German. The last trace of Gertrude Louisa Robins which was clearly my great-grandmother’s cousin which my co-researchers from the Dawson and Robins families and I found was the 1901 census. The first trace of the actress and dramatist we found is her marriage in 1906. We all assumed we were dealing with ONE person and this is how we are showing her on our family trees on Rootsweb, Ancestry and Geneanet.
However, we do have some doubts, mainly because the actress and dramatist mentioned an Irish father in an interview. The father of my great-grandmothers's cousin was English and so were his ancestors several generations back. In "The Irish Abroad" from 1915 the author classified her as an Irish woman abroad which adds to our confusion.
We are looking for any kind of document with birth date / place information which can be clearly associated with the actress and dramatist: passport applications (she travelled at least to Italy), CV's at theaters, population registry offices etc. Unfortunately I am not familiar with the corresponding authorities and archives in the UK.
The entries on Gertrude Louisa Robins on genealogy sites are from my co-researchers or from myself and might be incorrect. There are also some mentions on the internet with wrong year of birth, e.g.:
http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/person/mp67367/gertrude-robins-mrs-charles-dawson . I believe we exhausted all possibilities offered by Google etc.
The actress and dramatist lived in Naphill, Buckinghamshire (1910) and in London (1917). She does not appear in the 1911 census, possibly she was abroad at that time. Here some extracts from an interview in "The Era" of February 1, 1913 which gives some information about her work: "My village comedy 'Pot-Luck' ... originally played by Buckinghamshire Players (a body of local amateurs which I organized), I afterwards produced at the Palace Theatre. ...Speaking of the provinces, there is, I think, more than a grain of truth in the adage: 'What Manchester thinks today London does tomorrow ', for it was in Cottonopolis, at Miss Horniman's Theatre, that my early plays were first produced. ... My one-act play 'Makeshifts' was presented before that clever play 'Hindle Wakes', at the Playhouse; ... it has now been played over a thousand times in Great Britain, Australia, and Canada, and is to be presented in America by Miss Horniman's company. ... "A few years ago I took Honors in Modern Languages at Oxford. My mother is German and my father Irish... Hence it came about that… I was introduced to the late Wilson Barrett, who engaged me to play in his Repertoire Company on tour. After useful 'schooling' in the provinces and playing lead in Wilson Barrett's last play, 'Lucky Durham', I joined Mr. James Welch, and played in 'When Knights Were Bold' at Wyndham's. Subsequently I played lead with Mr. Granville Barker in his daring Anglo- Austrian 'Anatol' sketches at the Palace and the Little Theatre. I lately played Miss Irene Vanbrugh's part in ' Rosalind ' upon the occasion of the latter's Command performance at Sandringham; and, now, as the heroine of that merry and clever farce, ' Officer 666', at the Globe, I have my first experience of acting in an American production..."
Any suggestions are highly appreciated.
With kind regards, Gudrun (The Netherlands)
