Margaret Hughes

Margaret Hughes (c. 1630 – 1 October 1719), also Peg Hughes or Margaret Hewes, is often credited as the first professional actress on the English stage. Hughes was also famous as the mistress of the English Civil War general and later Restoration admiral, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.

Women in Restoration drama

Hughes became an actress during a period of great change in English drama. English drama had suffered greatly during the English Civil War and the Interregnum, being banned by a Puritan Parliament in 1642. This ban was finally lifted upon the Restoration of King Charles. Charles was a keen theatre-goer, and promptly gave two royal patents to Sir Thomas Killigrew and Sir William Davenant. During the Renaissance women had been almost exclusively banned from appearing as actresses on the stage, and there was a history of embarrassing incidents occurring for male actors in female roles. One famous incident occurred when a play which King Charles II was watching suddenly stopped. When he sent servants to see what the problem was it was found that the male that was supposed to play one of the female parts was still shaving. There were also concerns over this practice encouraging "unnatural vice", i.e., homosexuality, which added to Charles' decision to issue a royal warrant in 1662 declaring that all female roles should be played only by female actresses. Killigrew and Davenant were casting women almost immediately following the Restoration and, once women began appearing professionally on the stage in the early 1660s, they won quick acceptance. Killigrew staged an all-female-cast production of his own play The Parson's Wedding in 1664 and again in 1672.

Margaret Hughes (sportswriter)

Margaret Patricia Hughes (1 October 1919 – 30 January 2005) was a sportswriter.

Her first book, All On A Summer's Day (1953), was described by Neville Cardus in his foreword to the book as "the first book on first-class cricket not written by a man".

Margaret was brought up in Kent, one of four children of Dorothy Maude and Arthur Hughes. She worked for the advertising department of the Star newspaper, taking the job "to see the cricket scores before the general public". During World War II she served as a Wren. She then resumed her newspaper career and became a close friend of Cardus. He bequeathed her his copyrights.

Following All On A Summer's Day, she covered the Ashes series of 1954–55 for the Sydney Daily telegraph, the only woman ever to cover an Ashes series for a daily newspaper until Chloe Saltau did so in 2005. Her tour diary was published as The Long Hop (1955).

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Margaret Hughes (disambiguation)

Margaret Hughes was an actress.

Margaret Hughes may also refer to:

Margaret Hughes (Los Angeles)

Margaret Hughes was the first woman member of the Los Angeles City Board of Education, elected in 1891 but taking her seat in 1892 only after a successful legal battle. She was also active in club and philanthropic work.

Biography

She was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on March 1, 1826, and her family moved thereafter to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where she attended school. In 1843 she married Isaac W. Moore, and they had five children. Her husband died in 1856 or 1857, and she then supported herself and her family by tutoring. She married William F. Hughes, president of the Bank of Philadelphia, around 1861. After he died, she moved to Los Angeles in 1874 with a son and purchased property at 14 St. James Place in the West Adams district. Her children were Gilbert Stuart Moore, the eldest, of Mount Airy, Philadelphia; Fannie H. (or Mrs. Frances ) Shoemaker, Walter Scott Moore, who became a fire chief of Los Angeles, and Josephine E. Butler, or Mrs. J.W. Landell, of Orange County.