At the age of seven Robertson was sent to Spalding Academy, and then to a school in Whittlesey, acting with the family's theatrical company during the school holidays. When he was about 15 his schooling ceased and he rejoined the company full-time, not only as an actor, but also, according to his biographer Michael R. Booth, "as a scene painter, songwriter, playwright, prompter, and stage-manager". He wrote stage adaptations of Dickens stories for the company: "The Battle of Life" and "The Haunted Man". Apart from a brief and unsuccessful spell in the Netherlands as an English teacher, he remained with the company until its disbandment in 1849. London Robertson moved to London, earning a meagre living, writing and taking such acting parts as he could get. His biographer T. Edgar Pemberton wrote, "The amount of work that he did there during his early struggling days was prodigious. In addition to writing and adapting plays he contributed stories, essays, and verses to many magazines: dramatic criticisms to several newspapers: and ephemeral work to numerous comic journals". In 1851 Robertson had a new play presented in the West End, A Night's Adventure, a comic drama set in the time of the Jacobite rising of 1745. He hoped this would be start of a successful career as a dramatist, but the play was not a success, closing after four nights, and he continued to scratch a living as a writer and actor. Together with H. J. Byron, who became a close friend, he put on an entertainment at the Gallery of Illustration, without success. He worked as a prompter at the Olympic Theatre, tried unsuccessfully to join the army, and travelled to Paris with a company giving a season of English plays there. In 1855, while playing at the Queen's Theatre, he met a 19-year-old actress, Elizabeth Burton. They were married in July the following year; they had a son and three daughters. After their wedding the Robertsons toured Ireland before returning to act in London and the provinces. From 1858 Robertson, feeling that the life of a touring actor left no time for the serious business of writing plays, gave up acting and concentrated on writing. Robertson's farcical sketch The Cantab, staged as an after-piece at the Strand Theatre in February 1861, attracted the attention of a Bohemian literary set, and led to his becoming a member of the Savage, Arundel and