[citation needed] Although she later claimed that her father was the headmaster of the Glastonbury Grammar School, according to the census returns he was an insurance agent (1851) and later an unemployed commercial traveller (1861).
There, at age 16, she played Lady Teazle and then, opposite Samuel Phelps, numerous leading parts.
She then returned to England and starred as Lady Macbeth opposite Henry Irving at the Lyceum Theatre, London, during the illness of Ellen Terry.
In January 1885 the couple appeared in Grundy's The Silver Shield at the Royal Strand Theatre, and for several years toured together in the British provinces, but eventually they had trouble getting a joint engagement and, out of work, ran up debts.
[6] Eventually Roselle and Dacre travelled to Australia where they played in Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney (at Her Majesty's Theatre) and elsewhere.
[3] In Australia in 1895, as part of a murder-suicide pact, Dacre shot Roselle dead before cutting his own throat.