Hannah Lightfoot (1730 - before December 1759) is sometimes erroneously named as a first wife of George III of the United Kingdom.

Hannah Lightfoot was born in London, the daughter of Matthew Lightfoot (d. 1733), a shoemaker, and his wife Mary Wheeler (d. 1760). She was a Quaker.

In an 1866 trial regarding the dubious claims of Princess Olive and her daughter Princess Lavinia, it was alleged that George III married Hannah Lightfoot on April 17, 1759, prior to George III's marriage to Charlotte in 1761, leaving the latter marriage invalid.

Lightfoot's purported marriage, contracted before passing of the Royal Marriages Act in 1772, would have made the alleged progeny of that marriage the rightful heirs of the throne of England.

However, the marriage certificate produced by Princess Olive's daughter Lavinia at trial proved to be a forgery (it, with other forged documents entered into evidence are now in the Royal Archives in Windsor Castle).

Such a marriage, had it occurred, would in any case have been bigamous, as Lightfoot had married Isaac Axelford on 11 December 1753.

Further, there could have been no progeny of that marriage, as Lightfoot was dead within months of the purported date of April 1759: her husband Isaac Axford married, as her widower, in December 1759.

It is sometimes still asserted that George III's marriage in 1761 to Charlotte was "bigamous", and that descendants of that marriage should not, on that basis, assume the throne.

This assertion is nonsensical: There was no marriage of George III to Hannah Lightfoot: and if there had been, Lightfoot was dead by the time of George III's marriage to Charlotte, leaving him free to marry.

It is sometimes still asserted that there were progeny of the "marriage" of Lightfoot to George III who "by right" should occupy the throne: there was, however, no such marriage, and there were no such progeny.

References

• The Great Pretenders: The True Stories behind Famous Historical Mysteries, Jan Bondeson, W.W. Norton & Co, New York, 2004. [ISBN 0-393-01969-1]