Ann Hatton

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Ann Julia Hatton, née Kemble (other married name Curtis; also known as Ann of Swansea) (1764-1838), was a popular novelist of the early 19th century.

Ann Hatton was the daughter of strolling player Roger Kemble. Her siblings included the famous actress Sarah Siddons and actor John Philip Kemble. Other members of the Kemble family were also actors.

Ann was apprenticed to a mantua maker before going on the stage. She first married an actor, C. Curtis, before finding that he was already married. She was left in such straights financially that she appealed for relief from the public in a newspaper advertisement of 1783 and later attempted suicide in Westminster Abbey.

In 1792 Ann married William Hatton and a year later went to America. In 1794 Hatton's tremendously popular "Tammany: The Indian Chief" premiered on Broadway. It was the first known libretto by a woman and it was the first major opera libretto written in the United States that had an American theme.

By 1799 the Hattons had returned to Britain and settled in Swansea, where they ran the bathing house and lodgings. After her husband's death in 1806, Ann kept a dancing school in Kidwelly until 1809. She spent the remainder of her life in Swansea.