Hannah Twynnoy

Hannah Twynnoy (c. 1669/70 – October 1703) is believed to have been the first person to have been killed by a tiger in Britain. Twynnoy was an early 18th-century barmaid working in The White Lion public house in the centre of the English market town of Malmesbury in Wiltshire.

Her death is recorded in the Malmesbury parish register, which records a burial on 23 October 1703 of "Hannah Twynney kild by a Tygre at ye White Lyon".^[1] Her gravestone survives in a corner of the churchyard of Malmesbury Abbey, with a memorial poem alluding to her death. A memorial plaque with more details was recorded by an antiquarian in the nearby village church at Hullavington, but is now lost.