Frederick Robson and
his daughters

The private life of the actor Frederick Robson was irregular, to say the least. Officially, he married Rosetta Frances May in 1841 and the couple had a son Frederick, born in 1843, and a daughter Frances, born in 1846. They separated soon after the birth of their second child and formed other attachments. At the time of the 1861 census, Robson was living maritalement at 19 Ampthill Square in London's Somers Town with Mrs Sarah Emma Manly, who appears on the census as 'Mrs Robson.' Also present on the night of the census were 'their' children: Henry (17), Frederick (16), Fanny (14) and Mary (12). The two girls seen in this portrait are almost certainly Fanny and Mary.

Mrs Sarah Emma Manly was born Sarah Emma Humphrey in or about 1821, the daughter of a wheelwright of William Street in St Pancras. She married a jeweller named Charles Philip Manly on 11 May 1842. He was probably the father of Henry and Mary who were living with Robson in 1861, alongside his own children by Rosetta, namely Frederick and Frances ('Fanny'). 

Shortly after, Mrs Manley quit the scene and the real Mrs Robson returned, bringing with her a boy aged about eight, referred to as her nephew Edwin May. In 1879 she declared that he was her legitimate son by her husband, stating that Robson had visited her at times during their separation and on one of these occasions Edwin had been conceived, although his birth had not been registered. Evidence exists, however, that Robson had never accepted paternity. 

Rosetta and Robson stayed together until the actor's death in 1864. 

It should be noted that when Mary Emma was born on 1 May 1848, her surname was registered as Manly and when she was baptised at St Pancras Old Church on 22 Octobert 1848, Charles Philip Manly was present and represented himself as her father. Similarly, when she married assistant surveyor James McClearly in 1870, her name was recorded as Mary Emma Manly and she gave Charles Philip Manly as her father. Her first husband died and when she remarried in 1881, this time to a stationer named Charles Warwick, she again claimed Charles Philip Manly was her father. It therefore seems likely that despite their domestic arrangements at the time of the 1861 census, Frederick Robson was not her biological father. 

Mrs Mary Emma Warwick died, aged 73, in the district of St Pancras in 1920.