Author: Heard, William
Biography:
HEARD, William (1743-78: findmypast.com)
According to Highfill, he was a doctor who died in Africa at the age of 34, but no evidence has been found to support those details. On the contrary, his Sentimental Journey collection of poems, dedicated to Hannah More (q.v.), was dated from London in Jan. 1778 and he was buried at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, London, on 29 Sept. of the same year. He was born on 30 Dec. 1743 and baptised at St. Sepulchre, Holborn, London, on 4 Jan 1744, the son of Mary and Archibald Heard of Charterhouse. His father may have been, as Highfill maintains, a bookseller on Piccadilly, but no supporting evidence has been located. He was certainly a stagestruck young man. The opening poem in his first collection is all about the London theatres, and several other poems celebrate actors and dramatists. On 25 May 1771 he married Ann Madden (1750-97), a dancer and actor, at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. The couple had one daughter, Elizabeth, who went on the stage as a child in 1783 and made her adult debut in 1800. Heard wrote two pieces for the stage, a comedy and a “musical drama” which were performed and published without much success. Mrs. Heard continued to perform in London and at provincial centres: the title poem of Heard’s second and last collection is a lively record of the company’s tour from Oxford through Wales to Bristol and Bath, with the central figure of “Maria” taken ill and holding up the tour while she takes a goatsmilk cure. The cause of Heard’s death in London is not known. His wife spent the last twelve or so years of her life on the payroll at Drury Lane and died in London on 5 Feb. 1797. (“Heard, Mrs. William,” Highfill 7: 227-9; findmypast.com 6 Apr. 2022; ancestry.com 6 Apr. 2022; Scots Magazine 1 Jun. 1775) HJ