Susanna Shakespeare

Susanna Hall
Born	Susanna Shakespeare
Baptised	26 May 1583
Died	11 July 1649 (aged 66)
Nationality	English
Spouse(s)	John Hall (1607–1635)
Children	Elizabeth Barnard
Parent(s)	William Shakespeare Anne Hathaway
Signature

Susanna Hall (née Shakespeare; baptised 26 May 1583 – 11 July 1649) was the oldest child of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, and the older sister of Judith Quiney and Hamnet Shakespeare. She married John Hall, a local physician, in 1607. They had one daughter, named Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth married Thomas Nash, son of Anthony Nash on 22 April, 1626 at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Susanna was baptised in the Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon on Trinity Sunday (a church feast day), which that year fell on 26 May 1583.

Shakespeare's wife Anne was already pregnant with Susanna when the couple were married. The name "Susanna" derives from the story of Susanna and the elders in the Book of Daniel and suggests "purity and spotlessness", and had associations that appealed to the Puritans. It first appeared in Stratford parish registers in 1574, so the name was still rather novel, but it was shared by two other children born that spring. As such it may have been an assertion of virtue for a child born "perilously close to the wrong side of marriage" as the historian Peter Ackroyd put it.

She was raised in Stratford-upon-Avon along with her younger siblings, twins Hamnet and Judith. Stratford school records of the time do not exist, and since girls were not allowed at the Stratford King Edward VI School, any education she would have received would have been arranged by her family through tutors. Two extant signatures exist, so it is known that she was able to sign her name.

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