Ann Hatton

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Besides her poems and opera librettos dating from the late eighteenth century, AH published with the Minerva Press fourteen novels or romances as Ann (or Anne) of Swansea, beginning in 1810. A highly intelligent though not particularly literary or highbrow writer, she reflects in turn almost every style of the period: settings historical and modern, in Wales, Scotland, the Lake District, and Ireland, besides Italy and Germany; historical romance, modern satire, and the emerging silver fork novel. Her theatrical heritage may have helped to produce her fine ear for dialogue.
Painting by William Watkeys, 1835, of Ann Hatton sitting with a book under her left hand. Her hair is in a bun with a veil tied in it, draping down her right shoulder. She is wearing a blue dress. The painting seems to have some sort of damage in the form of a slash over her cheek. Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea.

Milestones

29 April 1764
Ann Julia Kemble (later AH ) was born at Worcester.
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
7:171
About 1775
The eleven-year-old Ann Kemble penned a play; it was acted at her father 's theatre at Brecon. But no records substantiate her account of it.
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
7: 171
Henderson, Jim. “Ann of Swansea: a life on the edge”. National Library of Wales Journal, No. 1, pp. 1 - 47.
13
By April 1784
The future AH published with her name (Ann Curtis, sister of Mrs. Siddons) Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, with a strong subscription list, dedicated to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire .
Critical Review. W. Simpkin and R. Marshall.
57 (1784): 314
3 March 1794
Tammany; or, The Indian Chief, with a libretto entirely by AH , opened in New York: it was the first American (serious) opera on a native Indian subject.
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
7: 173
Henderson, Jim. “Ann of Swansea: a life on the edge”. National Library of Wales Journal, No. 1, pp. 1 - 47.
17
October 1838
AH addressed some verses to her old friend the Swansea doctor Douglas Cohen .
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
7: 175
26 December 1838
AH died at the age of seventy-four, after being a widow for more than thirty years, of a renal dysfunction, probably Bright's Disease.
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
7: 175
Henderson, Jim. “Ann of Swansea: a life on the edge”. National Library of Wales Journal, No. 1, pp. 1 - 47.
41

Biography

Birth and Family

29 April 1764
Ann Julia Kemble (later AH ) was born at Worcester.
Highfill, Philip H., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Actresses, Musicians, Dancers, Managers and Other Stage Personnel in London, 1660-1800. Southern Illinois University Press, 1993.
7:171

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