Author: Willet, Thomas
Biography:
WILLET, Thomas (fl 1778)
Thomas Willet or Willett published (anonymously) only one short work, a “burletta” which was performed to music by Raynor Taylor (1747-1825) at the Haymarket Theatre, London, in 1778. The title Buxom Joan is taken from a song in Congreve’s Love for Love; the play tells the story of Joan who is courted by a tinker, a tailor, and a soldier, but rejects them all in favour of a sailor. The author is identified by Baker (1812) as someone who “was, and may be still, a hardware-man at Chelmsford, in Essex.” He might be the Thomas Willett, son of Susannah and Charles Willett, who was baptised at Chelmsford on 30 Mar. 1761 and apprenticed in that town on 8 Mar. 1775—but that boy was indentured to a linen draper, so he must have changed course if he became a hardware-man later. Or he might have been one of the family of ironmongers who had a family business in Coggeshall, some miles away, and are on record in the newspapers and the census of 1841—but nothing links them to Chelmsford. The record of deaths in the general area includes a surprising number of men of this name between 1780 and 1820, and it has so far not been possible to narrow down the field any further. (Baker 1:748; ancestry.com 10 June 2024; findmypast.com 10 June 2024) HJ