Robert Graham Manson Robert Graham Manson Robert Graham Manson (11 June 1883 – 14 February 1950) was a British-born musician. Manson was born in London, one of four sons of James Alexander Manson (born 1852), a journalist and author. One of his brothers was James Bolivar Manson (1879 - 1945) who was an artist and Director of the Tate Gallery in London from 1930 to 1938. Robert was a student at the Royal College of Music from January 1900 to December 1903. His tutors included Arthur Somervell, Sir Frederick Bridge and Sir Charles Villiers Stanford. He played the violin, viola and piano. He
Manson Family Charles Watson soon joined the group at Spahn's ranch. Watson, a small-town Texan who had quit college and moved to California, met Manson at Dennis Wilson's house. Watson gave Wilson a ride while Wilson was hitchhiking after his car was wrecked. Spahn nicknamed Watson "Tex" because of his pronounced Texan drawl. In the first days of November 1968, Manson established the Family at alternative headquarters in Death Valley's environs, where they occupied two unused or little-used ranches, Myers and Barker. The former, to which the group had initially headed, was owned by the grandmother of a new woman (Catherine Gillies)