I just ran across the following interesting text in The Gardener's Monthly, vol. 28, 1886, p. 350:

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"Some years ago, Mr. Henry Shailer, then of the Chapel Nursrey, Battersea Fields, contributed to the Gardener, Florist and Agriculturist, an account of the first red Moss rose. He states that it was first sent over with some plants of Orange trees from the Italian States to Mr. Wrench, then at Broom House, Fulham. This, according to Mr. Shailer, was about the year 1735. It remained in that family nearly twenty years without being much noticed or circulated, until a nurseryman named Grey, of the Fulham Nursery, now Messrs. Osborn & Sons, brought it into note."

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This red Moss is referable I believe to what I list in The Old Rose Adventurer as the old Moss 'Rubra'. The story above agrees in time frame with what is reported there about Mme. de Genlis introducing 'Rubra' from England into France in 1777; obviously when Mme. de Genlis ran across it, it had already been in England for a few decades; and so we get some more clarity on this variety's early career.