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The Bluestockings circle

Conference| Publication| Audio

Exhibition: Introduction| Celebrating Modern Muses| A Revolution in Female Manners
The exhibition begins by introducing the fashionable Bluestocking Circle and exploring how a tight-knit group of
women became a model for rational 'Enlightenment' forms of sociability. The Bluestockings met in the London
homes of the fashionable hostesses Elizabeth Montagu (1718-1800), Elizabeth Vesey (c.1715-91) and Frances
Boscawen (1719-1805) from the 1750s. Together these women, and the eminent men who supported their
endeavours, invented a new kind of informal sociability and nurtured a sense of intellectual community and
potential. Guests included the leading literary, political and cultural figures of the day, including the scholar and
classical translator Elizabeth Carter (1717-1806), the critic and writer Samuel Johnson (1709-84), the artists
Frances Reynolds (1729-1807) and her brother Sir Joshua (1723-92), the novelist Fanny Burney (1752-1840) and
the writer and dramatist Hannah More (1745-1833). They got their comical name - 'Bluestockings' - when
another guest, the botanist Benjamin Stillingfleet (1702-71), was welcomed at one of Elizabeth Montagu's
salons even though he had arrived absent-mindedly wearing the blue woollen stockings normally worn by
working men, instead of the more formal white silk.
The delicate balance of fashionable and intellectual polish normally required by bluestocking society is conveyed Anna Seward
in a letter from Hester Thrale (1741-1821) to Fanny Burney where she marvelled that the bluestocking hostess by Tilly Kettle
and Shakespeare critic Elizabeth Montagu was 'Brilliant in diamonds, solid in judgement, critical in talk'. The 1762
mezzotint that reproduces Sir Joshua Reynolds 's now-lost portrait conveys the legendary elegance, poise and NPG 2017
style that, along with great wit and patronage, led Samuel Johnson to name Montagu the 'Queen of the Blues'.
This affectionate title also reflects the growing fame of Montagu's bluestocking salon, which became
increasingly grand and opulent especially in the 1780s. This was when she moved to her new Portman Place
mansion that she described as her 'temple to Virtue and friendship'. Despite Montagu's unparalleled wealth,
other more modest bluestocking hostesses were also celebrated for their hospitality and social skills.
In 1786, the poet and playwright, Hannah More published her poem Bas Bleu; or, Conversation (the title is French
for 'blue stocking'), which she dedicated to Mrs Vesey. Vesey was another bluestocking hostess, who was known
to her friends as the 'Sylph', because of her girlish figure, flirtatious wit and elusive spirit. In the poem, Hannah
More celebrated the 'electric' quality of bluestocking debate and described the moral and educational goals of
bluestocking sociability in forming a new space for learned women, in which 'our intellectual ore must shine'. In a
period when educated discussion was taken as an index of civilised society, Hannah More proclaimed
conversation to be 'That noblest commerce of mankind/ Whose precious merchandise is MIND!'

The Bluestocking Circle may have started out as a coherent London-based group, but in the 1770s and 1780s the
bluestockings developed into a broader social and literary network in which friendship, charity and female
education were celebrated as the foundation of modern civilised society, both in London and the regions. The
poet Anna Seward (1742-1809), known as the 'Swan of Lichfield' was, for example, a leader of provincial polite
Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson)
society and a national literary figure. While the story of Elizabeth Montagu and Hannah More's patronage of
by and published by John Raphael
Ann Yearsley (bap. 1753, d. 1806) the Bristol 'milkmaid' poet, is an instance when bluestocking ideals straddled
Smith, after Sir Joshua Reynolds
the social divide. The episode which began as a charitable enterprise, ultimately ended in scandal when the
published 10 April 1776 (1775)
independent-minded Yearsley accused Hannah More of fraud when she retained management of the profits from
NPG D13746
the milkmaid's book.
Networks of friendship, mutual support, intellectual encouragement and professional patronage were key
elements in the foundation of bluestocking culture and identity from the outset. One of the most unusual and
precious objects in this exhibition is a small, enamel and gold 'friendship box' of about 1740. This
commemorates the intense emotional bonds between four youthful bluestocking friends: Margaret Cavendish
(Harley), Duchess of Portland (1715-85), who commissioned the box; Elizabeth Montagu, her young friend; Mary
Delany (1700-88), who is most famous for her intricate and accurate botanical collages now in the British
Museum and, we believe, the amateur artist Mary Howard, Lady Andover (1717-1803), to whom the Duchess of
Portland left the box in her will. All four portraits are mounted in an intricate enamel and gold setting that reflects 'Friendship' Box
the close connection between these young women, bound together by their shared interests in natural history, by Christian Friedrich Zincke
literature and the arts - subjects that they discussed in a lifelong correspondence. enamel and gold, c. 1740
© The Stuart Collection
While the term 'bluestocking' was first associated with the intimate social groupings that met at the salons of
Montagu, Vesey and Boscawen, by the 1770s the name came to apply to learned women more generally. This
larger eighteenth-century resonance, which is investigated in the next section of the exhibition, stands testament to the high profile that bluestockings
achieved in an age when women had few rights and little chance of independence.

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