Hannah Brand

Hannah Brand (1754 – 1821), actress and playwright, was born in Norwich where she ran a "young Ladies Boarding School, No. 18, St. Giles's Broad-street" with her sister, Mary, until she turned to the stage. [ [http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1998/v/n12/005819ar.html Chandler] ] Her historical tragedy "Huniades, or, The siege of Belgrave," was first produced in Norwich in 1791 and was, according to the "Norwich Mercury", "well received" by "a genteel audience." [ [http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1998/v/n12/005819ar.html Chandler] ] A subsequent production at the Haymarket, however, in which she herself appeared, was not successful. She shortened the play, retitled it "Agmunda" after the character she herself played, and remounted it the following month; it enjoyed a small success. After this measured reception she left London to pursue a middling acting career in the provinces. She published a volume of "Plays, and Poems" (Norwich: Beatniffe and Payne) by subscription in 1798, in which she included "Huniades" and two other plays, adaptations of works by Corneille and Destouches, respectively: "The conflict, or, Love, honour, and pride a heroic comedy" and "Adelinda, a comedy". Neither would seem to have been performed. She subsequently gave up the stage and became a governess to a family in Woodbridge, though after her arrival there was apparently "much unpleasantness between husband and wife." [ [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3250 Knight] ] When she died she left small bequests to family members and the bulk of her estate, £200, to Mary Ware, a widow.

Footnotes

References

* [http://www.etang.umontreal.ca/bwp1800/chronology.html British Women Playwrights Around 1800]
*Chandler, David. "' [http://www.erudit.org/revue/ron/1998/v/n12/005819ar.html The Conflict': Hannah Brand and Theatre Politics in the 1790s] ." Romanticism On the Net 12 (November 1998) [22 Dec. 2006] .
*Knight, Joseph. “ [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/3250 Brand, Hannah (1754–1821)] .” Rev. K. A. Crouch. "Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Ed. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. 21 Nov. 2006.