Hannah Pritchard

Hannah Pritchard (1711-1768) was an English actress.

Born Hannah Vaughan and married to an actor William Pritchard at a young age, she first attracted attention as a singer at Bartholomew Fair in 1733. She was soon playing a wide variety of parts, mostly comedy, at the Haymarket, Drury Lane and Covent Garden. When David Garrick became patentee of Drury Lane in 1747 she joined his company and played with him for twenty years, her last appearance being as Lady Macbeth - one of her greatest roles - in April 1768, a few months before her death. Her talents were highly thought of by the critics of the day. Samuel Johnson, however, said of her that ""she no more thought of the play ... than a shoemaker thinks of the skin out of which the piece of leather of which he is making a pair of shoes is cut".

Her daughter, who had studied under Garrick, and whose beauty created a sensation when she made her debut (as Miss Pritchard) in October 1756, did not live up to the expectations then raised. She married in 1762 the actor John Palmer, retired from the stage at the same time as her mother, and after her husbands death married a political writer named Lloyd.

References

* Anthony Vaughan, "Born to Please: Hannah Pritchard, Actress, 1711-1768" (London: The Society for Theatre Research, 1979)