Agnes Robertson

Robertson, Agnes (1833–1916), actress. Born in Edinburgh, she began to perform when she was thirteen and soon became the ward of the famous English actor Charles Kean. After marrying Dion Boucicault, she traveled with him to America where she made her debut in 1853 as Maria in his The Young Actress. Her American career was tied inextricably with his. Among her important roles were Grace in several revivals of London Assurance, the Rachel‐like figure Violet (1856), the heroic Jessie Brown in Jessie Brown; or, The Siege of Lucknow (1858), Dot in a 1859 dramatization of The Cricket on the Hearth, the doomed heroine Zoe in The Octoroon (1859), and the secretly wed heroine Eily O'Connor in The Colleen Bawn (1860). In late 1860 Robertson returned to England and thereafter appeared in America only on rare occasions. Odell described her as “one of the most simple, artless and captivating artistes ever seen on our stage; in guileless Scotch and Irish peasant girls she has probably never been surpassed.”