The accomplished Mrs Boscawen at Hatchlands Park

Back in 2018, a century on from the passing of the Representation of the People Act, the National Trust launched ‘Women and Power’, a year-long national programme celebrating that historic milestone.

At Hatchlands Park we celebrated the life and achievements of Frances Boscawen, the first ‘Lady of the House’. Fanny was a founding member of the Bluestocking Society, notable for giving women a public voice and cultural standing in a time where to be an educated woman was frowned upon. We hope that you continue to enjoy reading about Fanny, her legacy and her inspirational friends.

Fanny Boscawen and her legacy

Fanny Boscawen was the first ‘Lady of the House’ at Hatchlands and oversaw the construction of the mansion that you see today. An often overlooked founding member of the bluestockings, Fanny was well respected by her intellectual peers in fashionable society, male and female alike.

The Bluestockings depicted as the Characters of the Muses

The Bluestocking Society

Fanny, along with Elizabeth Montagu and Elizabeth Vesey, was a founder member of the Bluestocking Society. A group of artists, writers and thinkers in the second half of the 18th century, they challenged society’s attitudes to women’s education and paved the way for the suffrage movement.

" I look upon it as a fortunate omen to begin my New Year in Mrs. Boscawen’s company. She is in her conversation everything that can make the hours pass agreeably. I must be happier, and I should be better for her friendship."

Chapbooks produced by the women of HMP Send

HMP Send chapbook project

Inspired by Fanny Boscawen and the Bluestocking Society and continuing directly from our 2018 programming, our House Steward, Rachel Devine, has been continuing to develop a creative writing outreach project in partnership with local women’s prison, HMP Send.

Georgian costumes created by The Arts Society at Hatchlands Park, Surrey

The Bluestocking Legacy: A Conversation

Fanny Boscawen’s London home was a popular spot for the bluestockings’ salons, described as a ‘rendezvous of the wit and culture of the day. In 2018, here in her home at Hatchlands, we reinvented the salon for the 21st century with successful women in the fields of history, art, literature and science.

Family, friends and legacy

A letter from Fanny Boscawen to Hannah More

The unpublished bluestocking

Kathleen Keown, researcher at the University of Oxford, discusses why Fanny has stayed in the shadows. Unlike her more celebrated peers, she remained without literary achievements or publishing credits.

Mrs Boscawen and the Admiral

Edward and Frances Boscawen fell in love with Hatchlands Park. After a long wait to obtain the estate, they set about creating the family home and safe haven from urban life that you can see here today.

Mary Shelley by Richard Rothwell, exhibited 1840

From Wollstonecraft to Lovelace

The efforts of Fanny and the bluestockings to progress the cause of women in the arts, opened the door to allow more women to publish work under their own names. These generations of pioneers continued to inspire their successors creating a far-reaching legacy.