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Hannah Snell joined the marines and fought the French at Pondicherry, India in 1749. She was wounded but got home to Wapping, and entertained keen audiences for two months of the Summer at the New Wells Spa Theatre, St Pancras in 1750 "filling up the stage in a very agreeable manner". .
The New Wells Spa Theatre staged tumblers, dancers, harlequins, and Hannah. She sang to old ballad tunes and her repertoire began with the patriotic Britannia's Goldmine , or the "Herring Fisherie Forever", a new ballad to the tune of "There was a Jovial Beggar". She followed that with a New Song that she might have made up (she couldn't write or read music) showcasing her treble voice as a cabin boy and a deeper voice as a mate. She also performed the Manual Exercise, a set of movements with a flintlock (the gun of the moment), which could be seen practiced by soldiers (males - unless there were cross-dressed females amongst them) on the parade ground at St James every day.
As her act grew in popularity Hannah developed it to lead a troupe of uniformed women marching and doing the Manual Exercise, learned from her or perhaps from the illustrations in Benjamin Cole's "The Soldier's Pocket Companion, Or the Manual of the British Foot" (1746). Female performers in uniform were a staple of eighteenth century theatre and Hannah seized on a moment. However, her experience as a soldier is proved by her army pension, granted by the Duke of Cumberland. The prints from her book, which she dictated to a journalist, and sold for a shilling, are kept at the National Portrait Gallery in London and the Huntingdon Library in California.
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