Mary Ann Wrighten

Mary Ann Wrighten Pownall, née Mary Matthews, (b. 1751, d. 12 August 1796) was an English singer, actress and composer.

Life

Mary Ann Matthews was born in England of a jeweler father and shop-keeper mother. She was apprenticed to organist Charley Griffith where she learned music, and made her debut on the stage at about age 15. She married actor James Wrighten in about 1769 in Birmingham, and the couple came to London to work in Drury Lane, where she quickly became successful as a singer and actress.

The couple divorced in 1786 in a public scandal, and Mary Ann Wrighten emigrated to the United States to work for theater manager John Henry. Her first American appearance was at the Southwark Theater in Philadelphia in 1792, billed as Mrs. (Hugh) Pownall. She also appeared in New York, and settled in Charleston, where she died during a yellow fever epidemic in 1796.^[1]

Works

In 1784 Wrighten published Four Ballads:

• I Could Not Help Laughing at That
• Kiss Me Now or Never
• Twas Yes, Kind Sir and Thank You, Too
• Young Willy^[2]

She is also credited with:

• Jemmy of the Glen (ca. 1790)^[3]

References

1. ^ Highfill, Philip H.; Burnim, Kalman A.; Langhans, Edward A. (1993) (Digitized online by GoogleBooks). A Biographical Dictionary of Actors, Volume 16, W. West to Zwingman. ISBN 0-8093-1803-2. http://books.google.com/books?id=5A4EHRa1dfcC&pg=PA294&lpg=PA294&dq=Mary+Ann+Wrighten+Pownall&source=bl&ots=IShAEy8e2Q&sig=MjfL0pW1iTPll-UeCmVSgdoVThc&hl=en&ei=sfmnTPcehKCUB4Da6akO&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&sqi=2&ved=0CBIQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Mary%20Ann%20Wrighten%20Pownall&f=false. Retrieved 2 October 2010. 
2. ^ name=bio>
3. ^ Kimberling, Clark. "HISTORICAL NOTES for SOLOS FOR TREBLE INSTRUMENT, ESPECIALLY SOPRANO RECORDER, COLLECTION 7:MELODIES BY WOMEN". http://imslp.org/wiki/User:Clark_Kimberling/Historical_Notes_7. Retrieved 2 October 2010. 

Persondata
Name	Wrighten, Mary Ann
Alternative names
Short description	Composer
Date of birth	1751
Place of birth
Date of death	12 August 1796
Place of death	Charleston, South Carolina