Actress/dramatist Gertrude L. Robins (abt. 1880-1917) - looking for birth date

[Jool]

Hi Arevans777

Just been mooching on Anc****y for clues, and spotted your tree.  You have a phone book record for Gertrude Robins, 15 Clifford's Inn, Fleet Street, London for 1907.  If she married in 1906 she would have been a Dawson by then.

I'm not trying to pick faults, just trying to clarify things 

Jool

[guvoko]

Good morning, everybody! This morning I re-read the contributions to this forum and I see I made a mistake when I said that the last trace of the hat and cap manufacturer's daughter was the 1901 census. I apologize for this. We do have a document with her father's will from January 1903 when she lived in Church End, Finchley, Barnet. At that time her mother lived in Germany. Her father John died in December 1902 but the marriage certificate from 1906 does not mention his as deceased, tough for me to say if this was uncommon. Church End is not as far as Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, from Holborn, Middlesex where Charles Edwin Dawson lived in 1906 but off course this is all but an evidence.

About the Oxford colleges, arevans777 did some research there, I grabbed our correspondence and see that he wrote to archives of

-Lady Margaret Hall
-St. Anne's College
-St. Hilda's College
-St. Hugh's College
-Somerville College

and got negative responses from all. But, so far St. Ursula's Convent in Oxford was not in the picture so that one might be "hot". And there might be others... We also wrote to the successor of that school in Peterborough where the hat and cap manufacturer's daughter worked, but they did not keep any records from that time.

Arevans777, am happy to see you here! Berlin Bob told me about this forum only yesterday and I must say I find it amazing how many helpful people responded. And knowledgable people! Maybe we should shift our future discussions to this forum to get some fresh ideas? Especially when we sum up the pro's (= we are talking about ONE person) and the cons (we are possibly talking about TWO persons). Please let us also know if I made any mistakes or omissions in my contributions.

All the best,
Gudrun

[Spidermonkey]

@Spidermonkey: Hm... good point. But one of my co-researchers checked the 1911 census and he says she is definitely not there and we know that at some point she was in Italy because we have a photo (w/o date) showing her in Florence. Do you have access to the Times archive? If so, would you mind checking for an article about her death (December 1917) for me?

All the best,
Gudrun

I will happily check articles for you, but the only one I could find about her death was a 67 word obit, just saying that Miss Gertrude Robins, wife of Lt Charles Dawson had died.  mentioned that she and Miss Horniman and Miss Darragh had founded Manchester Rep Theatre, and that Miss Robins had written 3 plays.  If you PM me your email address, I can send you the article if you want.

[Spidermonkey]

I've just noticed that Miss Darragh (AKA Letitia Marion Dallas) died on (or at least her death was announced on) 18 Dec 1917

[Spidermonkey]

Also, I presume that you have seen Gertrude's entry on the probate calender on Ancestry - have you bought her will?  She seems to have died without much money, but perhaps in the will it mentions brothers/sisters/nephews/nieces etc

[Spidermonkey]

Letitia Dallas (Miss Darragh) is on the 1911 census - in Birkenhead, but obviously that doesn't prove that Gertrude is in the country

[Barbara.H]

Hi Gudrun and all,

I haven't followed all your links so you may have already tried this:
if Gertrude was involved with Annie Horniman and the Manchester Repertory theatre, there may be correspondence between them in the Horniman Collection at the John Rylands Library in Manchester
http://archives.li.man.ac.uk/ead/html/gb133aeh-p1.shtml

The summary here says they have  "a substantial number of letters to Annie Horniman from authors, journalists, playwrights, critics, actors, managers and various other well-known figures of the day"

If you were lucky, there might be something with an address that you could tie in (or not) with your relative.

  Barbara

[arevans777]

Just been mooching on Anc****y for clues, and spotted your tree.  You have a phone book record for Gertrude Robins, 15 Clifford's Inn, Fleet Street, London for 1907.  If she married in 1906 she would have been a Dawson by then.

I'm not trying to pick faults, just trying to clarify things 

Jool

Ordinarily, it would be an anomaly, but consider that "Miss Gertrude Robins" was her stage name even after her marriage.  Alternatively, there can be a delay between the collection of data for a phone book and its eventual publication.

[arevans777]

I haven't followed all your links so you may have already tried this:
if Gertrude was involved with Annie Horniman and the Manchester Repertory theatre, there may be correspondence between them in the Horniman Collection at the John Rylands Library in Manchester
http://archives.li.man.ac.uk/ead/html/gb133aeh-p1.shtml

The summary here says they have "a substantial number of letters to Annie Horniman from authors, journalists, playwrights, critics, actors, managers and various other well-known figures of the day"

Looks like an excellent resource. From "The Stage" clippings we have gathered, GLR wrote "Realities" which was performed at Annie Horniman's Gaiety Theatre on 23 Oct 1911.  She also wrote and performed in "The Plaything" at the Gaiety on 9 Nov 1914.

Looking through the collection headers I can't see any correspondence specifically referencing GLR, but the are some general collections mentioned in which correspondence may exist.