by Meryl Faiers, 9 June 2026 My most recent post (20 April 2026) offered a reconstruction of the life of Rebecca Heminges, the wife of a grocer (and actor - John Heminges). Now I'm looking at two of the women who operated as practising grocers within the Worshipful Company of Grocers towards the end of the sixteenth century. Living nearby, Rebecca Heminges would undoubtedly have known both of them. The Wardens' accounts of the Worshipful Company of Grocers detail all the fi

by Héloïse Sénéchal, 5 May 2026 In this blog post, Héloïse Sénéchal looks at new evidence identifying the woman who served drinks to theatregoers at the Globe tavern. The second Globe playhouse had a least one tavern, but little is known about the people who operated it; the only individual documented working there is George White, identified in 1637 as ‘a vinner [vintner] at the Globe’.[1] I recently uncovered evidence placing the Globe tavern at a site close to the Tham

by Meryl Faiers, 20 April 2026 Evidence of the lives of non-elite women is often fragmentary and frequently found in administrative records. The first stage of thinking about the experiences of someone like Rebecca Edwards Heminges is to comb the archives to assemble a timeline of her documented life. Meryl Faiers has compiled a narrative of what we know so far about the wife of actor and grocer John Heminges. Cite: Meryl Faiers, 'Rebecca Heminges (1571-1619)', The King's Wo

by Meryl Faiers, 14 February 2024 Today, to celebrate her 445th wedding anniversary, the blog looks at the life of a theatrical woman...

by Meryl Faiers, 12 January 2022 King’s Man John Heminges was the father of many daughters, the best known of whom was Thomasine who, as...

by Jodie Smith, 29 December 2022 On this day, a winter Wednesday, 29 December 1627, was buried Henry Condell. Condell was one of the most...

by Meryl Faiers, 22 December 2022 On Tuesday 23 August 1603, Rebecca and John Heminges made the saddest journey for any parent as they...

We are delighted that the King's Women project has been selected as the winner of a competition run by Dr Varsha Panjwani, in association...

The KW team are pleased to have had a panel accepted for this year's BritGrad conference. 'Offstage Players: Discovering the King's...