Jeanette was baptised at Heybridge on 6 September 1868.
Robert had two illegitimate children by a girl named Jeanette Manning. Jeanette’s parents were drowned when travelling home in their punt down the River Blackwater from Maldon Hythe to Heybridge Basin in 1877. Jeanette and her older sister Julia were sent to the Halstead Industrial School for Girls where they received a religious and moral education as well as industrial training.
Their first child, a girl, died aged 10 months, but the second, a boy named Robert Wright Manning survived. Although Robert had promised to marry Jeanette this didn’t happen and he left Maldon to live in London.
In 1891 Jeanette (now Janet) is living in Hornchurch with her husband Alfred Tarling . Son Robert W Manning aged 2 is with them.