A controversial widow in her own time in part for her refusal to marry her paramour (with whom she had children) or conversion from the Church of England to the Baptists, she may today be best known for asking that women be given the right to vote.
[1] Her father was prominent civil servant Thomas Lee and her mother was colonial heiress Hannah Ludwell.
The fourth of eleven children, her siblings included Philip Ludwell; Francis Lightfoot and Richard Henry, both of whom signed the United States Declaration of Independence; Thomas Ludwell; diplomat Arthur; alderman; William;[1] and Alice.
[2] In 1747, Hannah Lee married her cousin Gawain Corbin, who had succeeded his father as burgess but died in 1760 from injuries sustained in a horse-riding mishap;[3] they had one daughter, Martha.
[4] She subsequently cohabited with physician Richard Lingan Hall (died 1774),[1] although they never married and she gave their children the Corbin surname, so as to not violate her husband's will, which stipulated that her inheritance would be forfeited if she remarried;[4] Corbin and Hall had a son, Elisha,[5] and a daughter, also named Martha.