In June 1852, while assembling a company of actors to accompany him on his Continental tour, Aldridge seduced a young married woman, Emma Stothard, who was living in the same London boarding house at 22 Judd Place, New Road, where he and his wife were staying. He had known Emma for three or more years and had been present at her wedding on August 15, 1849, when, functioning in lieu of her father, he had given her away to William Stothard, an eighteen-year-old dentist. Four months earlier Stothard had hired Aldridge for a fee of £50 to train him as an actor, and, as part of that arrangement, Aldridge had helped him secure engagements at a number of provincial theaters. After the marriage, the new husband and wife followed Aldridge to Wales, where Stothard joined a troupe of traveling players who performed in a seasonal circuit of small towns. Unable to support Emma on the little he earned, he sent her back to her mother in Tunbridge Wells and neglected to send her any money afterward, not even after she informed him that she was pregnant with their child. Apparently, he did not even come to visit her in London when he was performing as Cassio in a production of Othello in nearby Croydon in April 1850. And two months later, when she was confined in a lying-in hospital with their child, he wrote to her there, saying that his aunt wished to know whether they were married and that if inquiries were made, Emma should deny that they were ever wed. He thus completely abandoned his wife, and she had to take in needlework to support herself and their child.