The proper public expression of a gentlewoman's religious energy was the charitable association. Informal, individualized charitable giving was a long-standing aspect of elite stewardship, a Christian obligation entailed by the possession of property. Yet alongside this old tradition, often championed by devout women, grew up the great eighteenth-century associative charities directed by men, such as the Foundling Hospital and the Marine Society. Comparable charities and self-help associations sprang up in most prosperous provincial cities.74 Less is known, however, of the increasing number of provincial societies set up and run by women. In the absence of systematic research, scattered instances must suffice to suggest the potential range of early female associative life. Take the Bedale Ladies Amicable Society begun in 1783: essentially a self-help association set up to relieve its 123 members, in illness, disability and old age, it also offered the pleasures of participation in club life. A president and two stewards were appointed every six months, as was a clerk, ‘which may be male if thought proper by the society’, along with a standing committee of seven members to transact business. The members met on the last Saturday of every month, except December, between six and nine in the evening at rented club rooms and paid eightpence into the communal box. On club nights the ladies were each given a ticket which they could exchange for a glass of wine or a pint of ale. On feast days the members processed into church together to hear a sermon upon the occasion. All its members were demonstrably women of ‘sober life and conversation’, but some were in greater need than others. Doubtless the likes of the Honourable Mrs Pierce, Mrs Jane North and Mrs Ann Burgess (unlike those members rendered without a title) attended in a spirit of gracious patronage, or Christian responsibility, or even female solidarity, rather than financial expectation. Beyond its immediate monetary benefits, membership of such a society offered women the gratifications of institutional importance. By 1820 few were the provincial towns which lacked new public platforms for female right-doing. Certainly, archival evidence survives for female societies in York, Bradford, Leeds, Whalley, Wakefield, Carlisle, Workington, Hawkshead, Chester, Liverpool – and doubtless elsewhere.75
57 ‘A Nottingham Card Party’, 1797.
58 ‘A Polite Congregation’, 1797, depicting with satirical zest the unspiritual pleasures of church-going in a provincial town.
For the particular gentlewomen whose lives have been studied in detail here, involvement in a self-proclaimed society with the full panoply of officers, rule book and annuities was a comparatively late development. No such affiliation can be found in the records of Elizabeth Shackleton, Jane Scrimshire, Bessy Ramsden, Ann Pellet, Mary Warde, Anne Stanhope or Anne Gossip, but by 1819 the Southall circle were members of a society which mounted ladies’ booths at local bazaars, the proceeds to go the poor. In 1820 Mrs Tatham reported from Southall that ‘Miss Frith … is going to busy herself in a penny club’ that aimed to help clothe poor children. She stressed the novelty of this particular development, ‘This idea is from [Edmonton] where it has answered extremely well’, and the inherent possibilities for purposeful female recreation, ‘Mary likes occupation only in her own way – it gives a little consequence and will employ her mind which as she has nothing to do but for herself, may be of service.’76 In 1820 the sixty-two-year-old Mrs Anna Larpent was an officer and regular attender of her local female friendly society which was held in the parish vestry, was involved in the administration of a local school, operated a soup kitchen for poor children, did some workhouse and parish visiting, and sewed simple items for ‘Mrs Porter's charity repository’. While Mrs Larpent had always been a devout, observant Christian, comparing the diaries she wrote in 1790, 1800, 1810 and 1820 it is striking how many more formal ‘opportunities’ she had ‘of being useful’ in her last years.77 Hence, while some historians have stressed the extent to which respectable women were marginalized in nineteenth-century associative life, what is more remarkable from the eighteenth-century perspective is the extraordinary explosion in the number of philanthropic ventures authored and administered by women. As F. K. Prochaska has concluded of the early nineteenth-century boom in ‘feminized’ philanthropy, ‘The welling up from below of female power produced, among other things, the rapid growth of district visiting, with its emphasis on the moral and physical cleansing of the nation's homes; the prominence of institutions for servants, widows and “ladies”; the application of the family system in orphanages, ragged schools and other institutions; and the expansion of children's charity.’78 The public lives and profiles of genteel women were certainly enhanced by the nineteenth-century multiplication of organizations which gave a little consequence.
Beside the improving society in eighteenth-century England, blossomed groups for the furtherance of particular literary, antiquarian or scientific interests, along with clubs set up for sheer conviviality. In 1750 the novelist Edward Kimber estimated that ‘perhaps Twenty Thousand people in London’ met every night at clubs. Although little substantive research has been done on participation in such societies, first impressions suggest that, formally at least, the majority of these were within the purview of men.79 However, at this early stage of research it would be unwise to pronounce too emphatically on the dearth of a public intellectual life for women. In fact, suggestive new research by Donna Andrew using newspaper advertisements has uncovered a hitherto unsuspected number of female debating societies and mixed debating societies operating in London in the 1770s, 1780s and 1790s. A bracing cocktail of debates was on offer, from the question ‘Does an uncorrupted Senator, or an able general, render the greatest Services to the State?’ (14 March 1780, Oratorical Academy, Mitre Tavern) to ‘Does the clause of Obedience in the Marriage Ceremony, bind a Wife to obey her Husband at all times?’ (12 November 1798, Westminster Forum).80 Not that women's public speaking met with universal approval: The Times of 1788 maintained that ‘the debating ladies would be much better employed at their needle and thread, a good sempstress being a more amiable character than a female orator’. To little avail: there were at least forty-eight sets of rooms in the metropolis hired out to mixed or ladies' debating societies in this period, Andrew finds. However, debating societies in general, like combinations of all kinds, did fall foul of Pitt's ‘terror’ (the government-inspired persecution of political radicals) in the autumn of 1792; only societies debating non-political topics endured.81 Nevertheless, the popularity and scope of debating societies is suggestive of the potentialities of a public culture both rational and entertaining to which metropolitan women could lay claim. Further research must test the vitality of this culture in the provinces, although it is already clear that there were ‘female coffee-houses’ and conversation clubs sprinkled about the growing cities and resorts.82 It remains to be seen whether debating societies (male and female alike) revived in the more relaxed legal climate of the 1820s.
Interestingly, however, when we return to the particular genteel women who are our focus, intellectual societies are not referred to in letters and diaries until the early nineteenth century. It is plausible that provincial ladies attended local events such as the Leeds lectures on oratory in August 1776, or the Auricula Society's grand show at Wakefield in April of that year, but mentions of formal membership are missing. From the 1810s; however, it is another story. Book societies had been set up by Eliza Whitaker in Clitheroe, Alice Ainsworth in Bolton, by ‘A. B.’ in Preston and probably by Sarah Horrocks in the same town by 1816. A letter written by Alice Ainsworth in pursuit of a treasurer for her society, reveals that these female clubs incorporated formal (if unpaid) officers, and thereby echoed the organization of male associations. Taste ran not only to novels, but also to biographies, travelogues and improving tomes. Some societies were more serious minded than others; Alice Ainsworth's Bolton circle, for instance, sustained both a French and an English club and disdained popular literature, for, as she explained, ‘we do not tolerate the common novels of the day’. By contrast, ‘A. B.’ complained that her Preston soc
iety stocked little other than novels and altogether too few of those; she found both Mrs West and Madame d'Arblay's works disappointing.83 Female club life was in full flower in the provincial north by 1820.
This evidence for an early nineteenth-century institutionalization of female intellectual life is suggestive, in that it directly contradicts the chronology of increasing domestication so entrenched in nineteenth-century women's history. However, it must be observed that these societies formalized something long practised on an informal basis. Elizabeth Shackleton borrowed books from friends and lent her own books widely, noting the title and date of the transaction in her pocket book.84 Moreover, recommendations for and commentaries on reading-matter were a common currency of women's letters throughout the period. Mary Warde found a ‘beautiful simplicity’ in the second volume of Richardson's Pamela (1740–41); Ann Pellet thought both his Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady (1748) and Fielding's The History of Tom Jones (1749) ‘vastly entertaining’; Jane Scrimshire subscribed to local publications and adopted phrases from Sir Charles Grandison (1754); William Ramsden affected the whimsical style of Laurence Sterne and coined the nickname ‘Tristram Shandy’ for his cousin Elizabeth; and an affronted Bessy Ramsden asked for an opinion on offensive passages in Lord Chesterfield's Letters to His Son (1774).85
Genteel female readers enjoyed unprecedented access to the public world of print. In the period 1640–1750, 81 per cent of women among gentry and professional families in the counties of Yorkshire, Cumberland, Westmorland and Northumberland are thought to have possessed basic literacy skills. Therefore the percentage of gentlewomen unable to engage at some level with print by the nineteenth century must have been negligible. No evidence exists of classical erudition in the letters studied here, and comparatively few of the ladies discussed were sent away to school,86 so no claim is made that women were equal participators in exalted intellectual debate. Yet the proliferation of periodicals which translated ancient concerns in amusing, and manageable essays can only have increased female access to the basic agenda of high culture and politics.87 Even little girls could reflect on the classical themes of stoicism and public virtue by reading Roman texts in translation – a thirteen-year-old Quaker was soul-stirred by her reading of Plutarch in 1779: ‘We are reading the Life of Cauis Marius. O what a noble general he is, how he bore up under so many troubles as he had to go through in that small island.’ An aristocratic schoolgirl revealed her admiration for the Spartan virtues to her patient mother in 1771: ‘I am very much entertained with reading the Account of the Ancient Britaines how luxury is increased since those times, for their diet was spare & mean being barks & roots of trees … [etc etc].’88 Whether the daughter of a Quaker merchant or an Anglican lord, girls, like boys, could be inspired by the austerities of history. Unquestionably, the rhetorical nuts and bolts of public debate were available to literate women in the period.
The analysis of one woman's engagement with print culture is instructive in the demonstration that even from a comparatively remote area in the Pennines, it was possible and desirable to keep abreast of national and local politics, fashion and cultural debate. Elizabeth Shackleton kept a long-standing account with a London cousin, for the regular despatch of London papers. After his death the account was taken over by the obliging William Ramsden, who promised ‘a Dish of Politicks every Post-Day’. By this means Mrs Shackleton kept up with the business of parliament, receiving Saturday's news by Tuesday morning. Her taste in print journalism can be deduced from occasional remarks in her correspondence and letter books. From at least 1764 she read the London Chronicle, but in 1766 she was recommended the Whitehall over the Chronicle, ‘as a political or rather a party Paper’. After 1768 she took the St James Chronicle or the British Evening Post on a regular basis. On an ad hoc basis, she also received unnamed magazines from London friends and occasional travellers, and her pocket diaries all came equipped with thirty-odd printed pages of useful knowledge and fashionable comment. In addition, she possessed several volumes of The Spectator, which she lent out to friends and neighbours. From 1772 she also took a Leeds paper, but she did not specify whether it was the Leeds Intelligencer or the Leeds Mercury. Although she found the paper unsatisfying in terms of national news, it offered the closest approximation of local journalism and carried approving commentary on her efficacious Rabies medicine. Occasional diary entries reveal that she had access to other papers bearing Preston and Manchester society news, but these journals may have been borrowed rather than bought. Mrs Shackleton copied into her diary the contents of pamphlets on subjects such as the utility of labour-saving machinery or the qualifications of prospective local MPs (‘Mr Stanley [is] unacquainted not only with our Provincial manners, our internal Polity, Our Commercial Interests, our relative connections with our Trading Powers in the great Map of foreign & domestic Commerce, but he is even unaquainted with himself’) and declared the pleasure she derived from evenings spent discoursing upon literature, history and politics. She may not have gleaned her gossip from a coffee house, but she was certainly an attentive and discriminating member of that general public addressed by both the Leeds Intelligencer and the St James Chronicle. The reader who wept over the fate of Clarissa Harlowe was equally capable of fuming about the progress of the American war, or applauding the release of John Wilkes.89 Even a reader at some distance from a polite resort, could be an engaged member of that general public addressed through print.
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The potentialities of female public life should by now be apparent; but it would be misleading to neglect the factors that shaped cultural access for individuals – wealth, sex, age and geography.
The ‘provincial urban renaissance’ notwithstanding, there were wide geographical variations in the availability of fashionable, commercialized leisure. The public venues that the polite so complacently colonized were essentially urban, the most famous were metropolitan and the majority were only truly open or fashionably frequented in the season. The London season coincided with the royal family's residence at court and ran from November to May, or, as Ann Pellet put it, when ‘old winter will collect the whole within our Grand Metropolis where tis [said] will be various amusements to regale every new fancy for the present age’.90 Breezy bulletins from town catalogue the profusion of polite entertainments available every winter. However, by early summer the quality had moved on in search of rural refreshment, roosting on their country estates or in lodgings at a provincial resort. Those left behind in the depopulated city were to be pitied: ‘but surely the Town is a dreadfull place when Empty, & in the midst of summer when the Country is so very delightfull.’91
Of course, numerous provincial cities and county towns had their own winter season of assemblies, plays and oratorios. York, the radiant capital of northern gentility was specifically designed to rival the attractions of London, Bath and Tunbridge Wells. Susanna Gossip proudly boasted in 1730 that the new director of the Long Room, Lord Burlington, ‘proposes to make it ye most compleat place of entertainment in England’.92 Even lesser northern towns could be surprisingly lively. In Pontefract in the 1750s Jane Scrimshire reported with pleasure on flourishing assemblies, an election ball, a mayor's ball, a ball in honour of the king's birthday, a masquerade, a music meeting, plays such as Hoadley's The Suspicious Husband (1747) staged three times a week and an endless round of card parties taking place in ‘this Metropolis of Politeness’. In the severe winter of 1756 Jane Scrimshire found the Pontefract playhouse the warmest place in town because of the charcoal fires glowing in the pit.93
Moreover the shire towns enjoyed a mini-season, often accompanied by horse races, during the Assize Week or even the Quarter Sessions, and local festivals and national anniversaries invariably launched a flotilla of civic events and commercial entertainments in public-spirited towns. For example, two weeks of festivity crowned the Preston Guild held every twenty years. In 1742 a visitor reported that the ‘entertainments was quite handsome and Genteel, everyth
ing that the season cou'd afford, there was approx two setts of players, an assembly besides Private balls and two masquerades … I never so great a Crowd of good Company as there was at the assembly, the room is but small, and there was four Hundred and forty five Tickets taken out.’ Yet, even in ordinary years, Preston's Race Week was noted for its ‘very Genteel’ assemblies, ‘fill'd with Well Looking Men & Well Dress'd Women’.94 The spas typically had summer seasons: the earliest established one at Tunbridge Wells extended from May to October; the season at Bristol Hot Wells ran from late April to late September; while early eighteenth-century Bath had two seasons – in the spring and the autumn – but the resort became so popular as to have year-round appeal.95 The northern health resorts quickly came into their own. Buxton early boasted established social ceremonies and a constant flow of northern gentry, as the gouty William Gossip lugubriously reported to his wife in the summer of 1746. By the 1770s a ‘Genteel Post-Coach’ was laid on from Leeds to Harrogate, twice a week, for the June season.96 The development of the seaside resorts from the 1720s shadowed the growing popularity of sea bathing, and the tradition of taking an annual summer holiday was well established by the later eighteenth-century – a fashion which prompted the further growth of cultural institutions in those resorts favoured by the genteel. As early as July 1727 Barbara Stanhope noted a ‘great deal of company’ including a sprinkling of nobility gathered at Scarborough, and a visitor there in the summer of 1733 noted dancing every night.97 Throughout the period the spas maintained a reputation for accommodating a high-profile female public life. The Dean of Gloucester was appalled to find in 1783 that women at Bath were sufficiently emboldened to make advances to men. In sweeter vein, Elizabeth Reynolds testified ‘for ladies there cannot be another place so well calculated’.98
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