Martha Hale

15 March 1728 - 16 June 1803

MH had the habit all her adult life (during the later eighteenth century) of writing poems about her closest concerns, both private and public. The generic range of her mostly occasional poetry is wide, from political odes to love poetry and fables. Late in life she collected her verse in a printed volume, which is of interest both in showing the wide range of genres and topics open at this date to the woman poet, and because of her steady and independent-minded attention to issues of gender.

Milestones

15 March 1728

Martha Rigby (later MH ) was christened on this date at St Mary's Church, Stoke Newington, north of London, so she must have been born shortly before it.

“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

1749

MH wrote the earliest-dated poem in her collection, an ode addressed to Sir Charles Hanbury Williams , apparently seeking military preferment for the man she married the following year.

Hale, Martha. Poetical Attempts. T. Davison.

13 October 1786

MH composed what is from a feminist point of view one of her most interesting poems, To Mrs. Moore , on the birth of the first child ever born in Lambeth Palace.

Hale, Martha. Poetical Attempts. T. Davison.

44-5

By August 1800

MH became a published author when she printed by subscription (for charity) a volume entitled Poetical Attempts.

Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.

29 (1800): 463

16 June 1803

MH died at the age of seventy-one.

Burney, Frances. The Journals and Letters of Fanny Burney (Madame D’Arblay). Editors Hemlow, Joyce and Althea Douglas, Clarendon Press.

1: 75n10

Biography

Birth and Family

15 March 1728

Martha Rigby (later MH ) was christened on this date at St Mary's Church, Stoke Newington, north of London, so she must have been born shortly before it.

“FamilySearch Internet Genealogy Service”. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.