In the long struggle of women to play a full and equal part in life, Hannah Cowley is one of the true pioneers.
Hannah Cowley was born in Tiverton, Devon, in 1743, the daughter of Philip Parkhouse, the town's leading bookseller.
At the age of thirty-two she was at the theatre in London with her husband Thomas to see the current hit of the day, The School for Wives. Thinking she could do better herself, she settled down to write her first play. In less than three weeks she completed The Runaway and sent it to David Garrick who produced it at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, starring the incomparable Sarah Siddons.
Hannah Cowley became one of the most successful playwrights of her day. Courted by the great and the good, she thrived in the company of some of the most glittering artists, writers and political figures of those times. A champion for the rights of women, her subsequent plays, including the acclaimed The Belle's Stratagem, took up the concerns of women in a male-dominated society and, for the first time, addressed them on the public stage.