'The Queen of the Bluestockings': Mrs Montagu's house at 23 Hill Street rediscovered

Apollo, August, 2003 by Rosemary Baird

All Mrs Montagu's building works are documented in Rosemary Baird, Mistress of the House: Great Ladies and Grand Houses 1670-1830, London, 2003. An exhibition relating to the book (but including women other than Mrs Montagu) will be at Goodwood House, Chichester, from Sunday 3 August-Monday 29 September (Sunday-Thursday in August; only Sundays and Mondays in September; closed 7 September). Tel: 01243 755040. I am grateful to the HSBC Republic Bank (UK) Limited and to Pauline Leach for granting me access to the property, to Dr John Martin Robinson for confirming my find, and to John Hardy for advice concerning classical iconography.

(1) William Roberts, Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Hannah More, 4 vols., London, 1834, vol. I, p. 53, Hannah More to one of her sisters, 1775.

(2) 'The Queen of the Bluestockings' was the name later given to her by her great-great-niece, who published the first substantial volume of her letters, Emily J. Climenson, Elizabeth Montagu: The Queen of the Blue-Stockings, Her Correspondence from 1720 to 1761, 2 vols., London, 1906.

(3) Kerry Bristol, 'The Painted Rooms of Athenian Stuart', Georgian Group Journal, vol. x, 2000, pp. 167-79; eadem, '22 Portman Square: Mrs Montagu and her "Palais de la Vieillesse"', British Art Journal, vol. n, no. 3, 2001, pp. 72-85.

(4) For all these quotations, see Lady Llanover (ed.), The Autobiography and Correspondence of Mary Granville, Mrs Delany, 6 vols., London, 1861-62, vol. Iv, p. 508, letter from Mrs Delany to her niece, Mary Dewes, 28 May 1773.

(5) Climenson, op. cit., vol. l, p. 229.

(6) Ibid., vol. I, p. 229.

(7) Ibid., vol. I, p. 253.

(8) Ibid., vol. I, p. 258.

(9) Norma Clarke, Dr Johnson's Women, Hambledon and London, 2000, p. 64, quoting Letters from Mrs Elizabeth Carter to Mrs Montagu between the Years 1755 and 1800: Chiefly upon Literary and Moral Subjects, London, 1817, vol. I, p. 154.

(10) Quoted in D. Doran, A Lady of the Last Century (Mrs Elizabeth Montagu), London, 1873, pp. 79-80, undated letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter.

(11) "Climenson, op. cit., vol. I, p. 271, letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Sarah Scott, 3 January 1750.

(12) Madame du Bocage, Recueil des Oeuvres de Madame du Bocage, Lyon, 1762, vol. III (Lettres sur l'Angleterre), p. 12, seconde lettre, 8 April 1750. Madame du Bocage had earlier translated Milton into French, and on 25 May 1750 (ibid., p. 40), she reported, again to her sister, that Mrs Montagu had sent her a wonderful present, the superb new edition of Milton of 1748.

(13) Climenson, op. cit., vol. n, p. 203, letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Mrs Boscawen, 24 December 1752.

(14) Ibid., vol. II, p. 30, letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Mr Montagu, 3 May 1753.

(15) Huntington Library (hereafter HE), undated letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter, 31 December 1765.

(16) Doran, op. cit., p. 80, for her observation that 'You will wonder I should condemn the taste I have complied with [in the Chinese room at Hill Street], but in trifles I shall always conform to the fashion.' Undated letter from Elizabeth Montagu to Elizabeth Carter.