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Hannah Brand (1754 – 1821), actress and playwright, was born in Norwich where she ran a "young Ladies Boarding School, No. 18, St. Giles's Broad-street" with her sister, Mary, until she turned to the stage.[1] Her historical tragedy Huniades, or, The siege of Belgrave, was first produced in Norwich in 1791 and was, according to the Norwich Mercury, "well received" by "a genteel audience."[2] A subsequent production at the Haymarket, however, in which she herself appeared, was not successful. She shortened the play, retitled it Agmunda after the character she herself played, and remounted it the following month; it enjoyed a small success. After this measured reception she left London to pursue a middling acting career in the provinces. She published a volume of Plays, and Poems (Norwich: Beatniffe and Payne) by subscription in 1798, in which she included Huniades and two other plays, adaptations of works by Corneille and Destouches, respectively: The conflict, or, Love, honour, and pride a heroic comedy and Adelinda, a comedy. Neither would seem to have been performed. She subsequently gave up the stage and became a governess to a family in Woodbridge, though after her arrival there was apparently "much unpleasantness between husband and wife."[3] When she died she left small bequests to family members and the bulk of her estate, £200, to Mary Ware, a widow.
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