Author: Winford, Miss
Biography:
WINFORD, Miss (fl 1780)
A member of the Batheaston Circle of Anna Miller (q.v.), she published her satire Hobby-horses separately in London after first reading it at Batheaston, and was a contributor to the fourth volume of Miller’s Poetical Amusements in 1781. She does not appear to have published anything else, and is not identified among other contributors by Hesselgrave. Bath newspapers include her name (“Miss Winford”) as a seasonal visitor in several years between 1780 and 1792. It is possible that she was Ann Winford of Kent, the daughter of William and Ann Winford who was baptised at Canterbury on 30 May 1762 and who married Richard Hale at All Saints, Eastchurch, Kent—the home parish of both bride and groom—on 18 Sept. 1793. Her later life is uncertain. There was a Mrs. Hale recorded as a regular visitor to Bath between 1795 and 1815, but she was most probably the widow of Gen. John Hale (d 1806). (ancestry.com 3 July 2024; findmypast.com 3 July 2024; Ruth Aveline Hesselgrave, Lady Miller and the Batheaston Literary Circle [1927]; Bath Chronicle 4 May 1780, 19 Apr. 1792, 17 Sept. 1795, 11 Oct. 1798, 23 June 1803, 1 Mar. 1810, 6 Mar. 1815)