History of the Shakespeare authorship question others joined together to create the Shakespeare Fellowship, an organisation devoted to promote discussion and debate on the authorship question but endorsing no particular candidate. Since then a great many candidates have been put forward, including Shakespeare's wife Anne Hathaway, his supposed girlfriend Anne Whateley, and numerous scholars, aristocrats and poets. New candidates are regularly put forward, such as Mary Sidney (proposed in 1931), Edward Dyer (proposed in 1943), William Nugent (proposed in 1978) and Henry Neville (proposed in 2005). Some candidates have been promoted by single authors, others have gathered several published supporters. Sidney in particular has been promoted
Anne Hathaway (wife of Shakespeare) there is no reason to assume that this had not always been his intention. It is nearly certain that the respective families of the bride and groom had known one another. Three children were born to Hathaway and her husband: Susanna in 1583 and the twins Hamnet and Judith in 1585. Hamnet died at 11 years old during one of the frequent outbreaks of the bubonic plague and was buried in Stratford upon Avon on 11 August 1596. Apart from documents related to her marriage and the birth of her children, the only recorded reference to Hathaway in her lifetime