Susanna Hall
Susanna Hall was born on the 26th of May 1583, just months after her parents married. Historian Peter Ackroyd later described her as coming perilously close to the wrong side of marriage. She was the oldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, born before a set of twins joined the family. Most of what is known about her life survives in parish registers and testimony from a slander trial. It also survives in her father's will and the words carved into her tombstone. Why would a Stratford haberdasher's name become entangled with hers in a court case decades after her birth? And whose inheritance would come to depend on a daughter rather than a son?
She was baptised at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon on Trinity Sunday, a church feast day. The name Susanna comes from the apocryphal story of Susanna and the elders in the Book of Daniel, and suggested purity and spotlessness. It carried associations that appealed to Puritans. The name had only appeared in Stratford's parish registers since 1574, making it still fairly novel. Two other children born that same spring shared it too.
She grew up in Stratford-upon-Avon alongside her younger siblings, the twins Hamnet and Judith. No school records survive from Stratford in this period, and girls were barred from attending the town's King Edward VI School. Any education she received would have come through tutors arranged by her family. Two surviving documents carry her own signature, showing that she was able to write her name.
The parish records that first noted her name would soon give way to marriage registers, court testimony, and property deeds that carried it forward.
On the 5th of June 1607, Susanna married John Hall, a physician respected in Stratford, at Holy Trinity Church. She was 24 years old; he was about 32. Some evidence suggests Shakespeare settled a dowry on her of 105 acres of land in Old Stratford, land he had bought in 1602. He likely kept a life interest in it for himself.
John Hall's own case studies, called Select Observations, were published in 1657-22 years after his death. The earliest case recorded in it dates from 1611, a local one. That timing makes it almost certain he had lived and worked in Stratford from at least the time of his marriage.
Their only child, Elizabeth, was baptised on the 21st of February 1608 in Holy Trinity Church. The couple had no other children. Elizabeth would remain the only grandchild Shakespeare ever knew, since Judith's children with Thomas Quiney were born only after his death.
Six years later, a rumor about her personal conduct would end up before a church court.
In June 1613, John Lane, Jr., a 23-year-old, accused Susanna of adultery with Rafe Smith, a 35-year-old haberdasher. He also claimed she had caught a venereal disease from Smith. Hall was a notable Puritan in the community and supported the Puritan vicar, Thomas Wilson. Lane would later take part in a riot against Wilson, and it is possible his charges against Susanna had political motives.
On the 15th of July, the Halls brought suit for slander against Lane in the Consistory court at Worcester. Robert Whatcott testified on their behalf; he would witness Shakespeare's will three years later. Lane failed to appear at the hearing. He was found guilty of slander and excommunicated.
By 1619, Lane was found guilty of slander again, this time for attacks on the vicar and local aldermen. Court records also named him a persistent drunkard.
Three years after clearing her name, Susanna would find herself named in a far larger document: her father's will.
When William Shakespeare died on the 23rd of April 1616, he left the bulk of his estate to Susanna and her male heirs. The bequest, structured as an elaborate fee tail, included his main house, New Place, and his two houses on Henley Street. It also covered various lands in and around Stratford.
If Susanna died, the estate would pass first to her eldest son and his male heirs, then down through as many as seven sons. Should no sons survive, it would pass to her daughter Elizabeth Hall and her male heirs, then to Judith, then to whatever lawful heirs remained.
Shakespeare also named the Halls as executors of his will. John Hall proved the will in London on the 22nd of June 1616, at the archbishop's prerogative court at Canterbury.
New Place, the house Shakespeare had singled out by name, would remain at the center of the family's fortunes for another three decades.
In 1626, Susanna's daughter Elizabeth married Thomas Nash, son of Anthony Nash, at Holy Trinity Church. The Nashes then settled with Susanna at New Place, then the second biggest house in Stratford, for at least part of their marriage.
Thomas Nash made his own will on the 25th of August 1642. He left his house on Chapel Street and two meadows to Elizabeth. The bulk of his estate, including New Place, went to his cousin Edward Nash. Thomas was only the owner's son-in-law, though, not the owner himself, so he had no right to dispose of that property.
Susanna would outlive Thomas Nash by a couple of years before her own story reached its close.
Susanna died at the age of 66, only a few weeks after Elizabeth married for a second time. Her new husband was John Bernard, a member of parliament for Northampton. She was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford, next to her parents.
Her tombstone carries an epitaph that begins: 'Here lyeth the body of Susanna, wife of John Hall, gent., the daughter of William Shakespeare, gent. She deceased the 11 day of July, Anno 1649, aged 66.' The verses that follow praise her as 'Witty above her sex, but that's not all, Wise to Salvation was good Mistress Hall,' before closing with a promise that her love and mercy would endure long after the reader's own tears had dried.
Centuries after those words were carved, writers and filmmakers would keep returning to the woman named in them.
Playwright Peter Whelan dramatized the slander suit in his 1996 play, The Herbal Bed. Ten years later, novelist Michael J. Ortiz made Susanna the central character of Swan Town: The Secret Journal of Susanna Shakespeare, published in 2006.
Television and film revisited her repeatedly in the following decades. Helen Monks played Susanna in the 2016 sitcom Upstart Crow, and Phoebe Austen took the role in the 2017 drama Will. Lydia Wilson portrayed her in the 2019 film All Is True, and Bodhi Rae Breathnach played her in the 2025 film Hamnet.
In 2025, nearly four centuries after her birth, filmmakers were still finding new actresses to carry her name in Hamnet.
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Common questions
Who was Susanna Hall?
Susanna Hall was the oldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the older sister of the twins Judith and Hamnet Shakespeare. She married the physician John Hall in 1607 and had one daughter, Elizabeth.
When was Susanna Hall born and when did she die?
Susanna Hall was born on the 26th of May 1583 and died on the 11th of July 1649, at the age of 66. She was buried in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, next to her parents.
Who did Susanna Hall marry?
Susanna Hall married John Hall, a physician respected in Stratford, on the 5th of June 1607 at Holy Trinity Church. She was 24 and he was about 32. Their only child, Elizabeth, was baptised in 1608.
What was the 1613 slander case involving Susanna Hall about?
In June 1613, John Lane, Jr. accused Susanna Hall of adultery with the haberdasher Rafe Smith and claimed she had caught a venereal disease. The Halls sued Lane for slander at the Consistory court in Worcester, and Lane was found guilty and excommunicated.
What did Susanna Hall inherit from William Shakespeare?
William Shakespeare left the bulk of his estate to Susanna Hall and her male heirs when he died on the 23rd of April 1616. The bequest included his house New Place, his two houses on Henley Street, and lands in and around Stratford.
How has Susanna Hall been portrayed in film and fiction?
Susanna Hall has been portrayed in Peter Whelan's 1996 play The Herbal Bed, Michael J. Ortiz's 2006 novel Swan Town, and the 2016 sitcom Upstart Crow. She also appears in the 2017 drama Will, the 2019 film All Is True, and the 2025 film Hamnet.
All sources
5 references cited across the entry
- 1The National Archives - HomepageThe National Archives
- 2NewsWill at centre of legal battle over Shakespeare’s home unearthed after 150 yearsCaroline Davies — 2025-08-21
- 4Shakespeare's Family – The HallsVictoria Joynes — 26 July 2016