Hannah Underdown (née Smith) was a friend of Elizabeth Carter’s mother and became one of Carter’s closest friends. She lived in Shepherdswell in Kent, about ten miles from Deal, and Carter often visited her. She married John Underdown on 6 December 1731 in Sibbertsworld, Kent. On his death, her husband left as his sole heiress their daughter Frances, who on 12 June 1755 married Carter’s eldest brother John, but died at the age of 23 in July 1758. Hannah Underdown died in November or December 1783. Fifty-eight letters from Carter to Mrs Underdown, dated from March 1738 to April 1742, still exist in a private collection, and a selection of these has been published (Gwen Hampshire, ed., Elizabeth Carter, 1717-1806, An Edition of Some Unpublished Letters, Newark, University of Delaware Press, 2005).