Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson; 2 October 1718 – 25 August 1800) was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonnière, literary critic and writer, who helped to organize and lead the Blue Stockings Society. Her parents were both from wealthy families with strong ties to the British peerage and learned life. She was sister to Sarah Scott, author of A Description of Millenium [sic] Hall and the Country Adjacent. She married Edward Montagu, a man with extensive landholdings, to become one of the richer women of her era. She devoted this fortune to fostering English and Scottish literature and to the relief of the poor.
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👉 Elizabeth Montagu in the context of Bluestockings
Bluestocking (also spaced blue-stocking or blue stockings) is a term for an educated, intellectual woman, originally a member of the 18th-century Blue Stockings Society from England led by the hostess and critic Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800), the “Queen of the Blues”, including Elizabeth Vesey (1715–1791), Hester Chapone (1727–1801) and the classicist Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806). In the following generation came Hester Lynch Piozzi (1741–1821), Hannah More (1745–1833) and Frances Burney (1752–1840). The term now more broadly applies to women who show interest in literary or intellectual matters.
Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. It was later applied primarily to intellectual women and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed negative implications and is now often used in a derogatory manner. The reference to blue stockings may arise from the time when woollen worsted stockings were informal dress, in contrast to formal, fashionable black silk stockings. The most frequent such reference is to a man, Benjamin Stillingfleet, who reportedly lacked the formal black stockings, yet participated in the Blue Stockings Society. As Frances Burney, a Bluestocking, recounts the events, she reveals that Stillingfleet was invited to a literary meeting by Elizabeth Vesey but was told off because of his informal attire. Her response was “don’t mind dress! Come in your blue stockings!”.
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Elizabeth Montagu in the context of Clara Reeve
Clara Reeve (23 January 1729 – 3 December 1807) was an English novelist best known for the Gothic novel The Old English Baron (1778). She also wrote an innovative history of prose fiction, The Progress of Romance (1785). Her first work was a translation from Latin, at the time a language unusual for a woman to learn. She was a near-contemporary of the bluestockings ladies of Elizabeth Montague's circle.
Elizabeth Montagu in the context of Blue Stockings Society
The Blue Stockings Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century that emphasised education and mutual cooperation. It was founded in the early 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey and others as a literary discussion group, a step away from traditional, non-intellectual women's activities. Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet, who, due to his financial standing, did not dress for the occasion as formally as was customary and deemed “proper”, in consequence appearing in everyday, blue worsted stockings.
The society gave rise to the term “bluestocking”, referred to the informal quality of the gatherings and the emphasis on conversation rather than fashion, and, by the 1770s, came to describe learned women in general.