Author: HATTON, Ann Julia
Biography:
HATTON, Ann Julia formerly Curtis, formerly Kemble, pseudonym Anne of Swansea (1764-1838: ODNB)
Born at Worcester to Roger Kemble and his wife Sarah Ward, she was part of the illustrious Kemble theatrical family. Her father owned a travelling theatre company, her brothers were actors, and her sister was Sarah Siddons. However, she always felt a misfit among her siblings and to the end of her life she reflected bitterly on her family’s perceived failure to support her; that Sarah Siddons paid her an annuity to live away from London is repeated in many biographical sources. She was lame, scarred by smallpox, and received little formal education. She was apprenticed to a mantua maker and married the shadowy C. Curtis (d 1817) who turned out to be a bigamist. (Despite this, her first book, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, was published as by “Ann Curtis.”) In Jan. 1792 she married William Hatton, a widower with at least one daughter and they travelled to New York where in 1794 her “Ode on the Re-Taking of Toulon” was read at the Democratic Society and printed in numerous American newspapers. They travelled to Nova Scotia before sailing back across the Atlantic to settle in Swansea where they ran a bathing house. William Hatton died in 1806 and Ann struggled to make a living. Briefly she ran a dancing school in Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, but she returned to Swansea and stayed there for the rest of her life. She was involved in the theatre and published fourteen novels (all but one issued by the Minerva Press). In 1832 she solicited subscriptions for another book of verse, “Fifty-two Poetic Cumaean Leaves,” which was never published but survived in manuscript at least until the late nineteenth century. She also prepared a manuscript book of poems for a Swansea physician, Dr. Douglas Cohen. She died at home in Swansea and was buried in St. John’s churchyard. Her will benefited her step-daughter; Cohen, who received, among other items, her books with an expression of hope of his conversion to Christianity; and her servant Mary Johns. The will also benefited the Rev. William Bond, Catholic priest in Swansea. (ODNB 23 Mar. 2021; findmypast.co.uk 23 Mar. 2021; ancestry.co.uk 23 Mar. 2021; Highfill)
Other Names:
- Ann Curtis
- Anne of Swansea