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1741 to 1750

1743

born ..... Anna Laetitia Barbauld neé Aikin ..... English poet and writer for children who wrote educational material as well as stories.  In 1774 she married Rochement Barbauld and her best work was published during the next ten years. With her brother John Aikin she began the well-known series Evenings At Home in 1792 and in 1812 published her long narrative poem Eighteen Hundred and Eleven ..... and ..... 

born ..... Hannah Cowley ..... daughter of a Devonshire bookseller, playwright and poet and one of the first exponents of the comedy of manners.  In 1776 she wrote her first play in a fortnight The Runaway and it was produced at Drury lane by David Garrick. In 1801 she retired to Devon having written 13 works for the stage . She also wrote long narrative poems under the pseudonym of Anna Matilda. She died in 1809 ..... and .....

born ..... Madeleine Guimard .....  the illegitimate daughter of an inspector in a Paris cloth factory. At the age of fifteen she became a member of the Corps de Ballet at the Comedié Francais. She made her debut in 1762 and in the following year was designated as premier danseuse noble. Sadly, in her early years, she caught smallpox, which left her face badly scarred, but it did not detract from her attraction for men. Her lovers included the valet de chambre to Louis XV and the Prince de Soubise. He gave her a pension but when his family became short of money she had to give it up. In 1789 she married the choreographer and poet Despreaux and retired to a house above Montmartre where she had a long and happy married life. She was lively, vivacious and an excellent mime and excelled in naive shepherd girl roles which delighted her audiences. She died in 1816 ..... and .....

born ..... Marie-Jeanne Bécu, Comtesse du Barry ..... illegal daughter of a seamstress and at the age of 17 became the mistress of Jean du Barry, a former war profiteer who earned his living by procuring young girls for French noblemen. In 1768 he presented her to King Louis XV of France and she became his official mistress after the necessary social credentials were provided i.e a deceased father and marriage to Jean du Barry's brother, the Comte Guillaume. Marie was presented at court in 1769 and the King gave her the crown property of Louveciennes near Marly. She became a leader of society and a patron of the arts and was extremely popular, kind hearted and less ambitious than her predecessor Madame de Pompadour. However when the King died in 1774 she was banished to the Abbey of Pont-Aux-Dames but was allowed to return two years later. In 1781 she became involved with the Comte de Cosse-Brissac but eleven years later he was murdered and his severed head thrown through her salon window. She fled to England where she raised money on her jewels to live but a year later returned to France where she was arrested and guillotined at the age of 47 years. Louis XV had always professed loudly that it was impossible for any woman to attain the peak of perfection in the culinary art. This piqued her and so she invited him to a supper made by the best 'cuisiniere' in France. He was enraptured and asked "Who is this new cuisinier of yours?. He must join the Royal household." Marie replied " It is not a cuisinier but a cuisiniere and I demand a worthy recompense both of her and Your Majesty. I cannot accept less than a Cordon Bleu for her " .The Cordon Bleu was a blue ribbon formerly worn by Knights of the Holy Ghost, the highest order under the Bourbons and so came to be a part of cookery. She went to the guillotine in 1793

1744

born ..... Catharina Romanofna Daschkof ..... Russian princess  whose father was a member of the Russian senate. She was educated at the University of Moscow as a mathematician, was far above her contemporaries as a student of the sciences and was also successful in all branches of intellectual philosophy. She married Prince Daschkof, one of the first of the nobility of Russia and soon became a favourite of the grand duchess Catherine.  She took an active part in the conspiracy against Peter 111 and also prepared the elopement of the grand duchess of Petershoff. The honour of the Grand Cordon of the Order of St Catherine was conferred on her in 1770 and in 1782 she was appointed by a special ukase - Director of the Academy of Sciences at St Petersburgh. In 1784 she was appointed president of the New Russian Academy. She died in 1810. Her memoirs, when first published, met with little success but the value of her work as a repertory of curious and interesting information, having been proved and translated into English in 1840 by Mrs Beaufort, became very popular ..... and .....

born ..... Queen Charlotte Sophia .....  who was married to King George 11, mainly because she was Protestant, of exemplary life and opinions and was German. She was pious and her regime was spartan and it is believed that their model domestic habits may have helped the monarchy to survive in the unsettled period of the Revolution. Although she had fifteen children, not all survived but she was devoted to her husband and stood by him through his many mental collapses and final insanity. Her last years were spent tending to him and she never forgot where her duty lay. She died in 1818.  " I am always quarrelling with time : it is so short to do something and so long to do nothing " Her patronage of the potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1765 led to the name  'Queen's Ware' being given to his simply decorated cream-coloured earthenware

1745

England ..... on July 26th the first recorded women's cricket match took place at Gosden Common in Surrey  ..... and ..... the first magazine for women by women was The Female Spectator, edited by Eliza Haywood

born ..... Eleanor Butler - Lady ..... sister of the 17th Earl of Ormonde, in 1779 she retired to a cottage in Llangollen in Wales with her cousin Sarah Ponsonby and a maid where they lived in seclusion. They became famous throughout  Europe and were known as the "Maids of Llangollen" and received visitors from far and wide who came to see their eccentricity and devotion to each other ..... and .....

born ..... Hannah More ..... English playwright and religious writer who was educated at a boarding school in Bristol which was run by her elder sisters.  She began to write verses at an early age and in 1773 published The Search after Happiness, a pastoral drama for school. she went to London in 1774 where she joined the Blue Stocking circle of Elizabeth Montagu and her friends.  She wrote two tragedies for David Garrick  but, due to her religious views to withdraw from society, she retired to Cowslip Green near Bristol where she did much to improve the conditions of the poor.  Her moral tracts for the poor led to the founding of the Religious Tracts Society. She died in 1833 ..... and .....

born ..... Sophia Baddeley neé Snow ..... English actress and singer who excelled in Shakespeare. In 1763 she eloped with Robert Baddeley who had fought a duel over her with the brother of David Garrick. Her extravagant lifestyle and drug addiction brought her career to an early end and she died in 1786, aged only 41 years

1748

born ..... Marie-Anne Collot ..... French sculptor who was exceptionally skilful at sculpting portrait busts and worked with Etienne Falconet on his monument to Peter the Great in St Petersburg which became one of the 18th century's most famous pieces of sculpture. They stayed in Russia for 16 years and after marriage to Falconet's son moved to England but she became very unhappy there and left to join her father-in-law in The Hague. In 1783 he suffered a stroke and she remained with him as nurse and companion and because of this could no longer do any sculpting.  She died in 1821 ..... and .....

born ..... Marie Olympe Gouze ..... French feminist and revolutionary whose pseudonym was Olympe de Gouges. She was born the daughter of a butcher but claimed to be the illegitimate daughter on an aristocratic poet. At the age of sixteen she married an officer, Louis Yvres Aubury, but they separated two years later and she left for Paris where she became famous for her beauty, love affairs and writings. In 1789 she became a fierce supporter of the Revolution and a year later founded the Club des Tricoteuses. After protesting at the death of Louis XV1 she was arrested and sent to the guillotine in 1793

1749

born ..... Adelaide Labille-Guiard ..... French artist and the last of six children of a merchant. At the age of twenty she married Louis Guiard, a clerk, but they separated ten years later. She continued to study and learnt the art of pastels. In 1774 she held an exhibition in Paris and then began to study oils and in 1782 exhibited at the Salon de la Correspondence in Paris. A year later after undertaking a series of portraits of leading academicians she was accepted into the Academié Francais. Adelaide took many women pupils at her studio including the two shown in her self portrait which was hung in the Academié salon of 1785 as a silent protest against the new quota of only four women members. She was recognised as a leading portrait painter and remained in Paris during the Revolution. A determined professional and feminist, she campaigned continuously for greater opportunities for women artists.  At the age of 51 she married, three years before her death in 1803 ..... and .....

born .....  Anne Seymour Damer ..... sculptress. She was the only daughter of Field Marshall Conway and Lady Caroline Campbell, daughter of the 4th Duke of Argyll. In 1767 she married John Damer but although heir to a great fortune he was a hopeless spendthrift and in 1776 he committed suicide. After his death she devoted herself to sculptor. In 1797 her friend, Horace Walpole, died and bequeathed to her Strawberry Hill for life and the sum of £2000 to keep it in repair. She lived there until 1811 when she parted with it to Lord Waldegrave. Her sculptors include the busts of many prominent people of her day - Lady Melbourne, Nelson, Duchess of Argyle, Mrs Siddons and a statue of George 111 which is now in the Registrars Office in Edinburgh. She died in 1828. In 1979 a bust of Queen Caroline, wife of George IV, was bought by the Greater London Council for an undisclosed sum and was installed at Ranger's House on Blackheath which was bought by Queen Caroline's mother, Augusta, Dowager duchess of Brunswick and sister of George 111 ..... and .....

born  (c) ... Letizia Bonaparte  neé Ramolino ..... Corsican woman who married Charles Marie Bonaparte in 1764 and whose fourth child was the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Altogether she had 12 children but five died in infancy.  In 1804 she was given the official status of Madame Mère de l' Empereur and although she had tremendous wealth lived a simple and devout life.  Her half-brother became Archbishop of Lyons in 1802. She supported her son in his exile in Elba in 1814 but spent the last 18 years of her life until her death in 1836 in retirement in Rome

1750

born ..... Joanna Southcott ..... prophetess who was born in Devon. In middle age she declared herself to be the saviour of mankind and gathered about herself a number of disciples and assured them that they would be preserved for the Second Coming. Shortly before her death in 1814 she announced that she was to bear, by virgin birth, the second Christ but when the time arrived she did not deliver of a child and died soon afterwards on 27th December.  Joanna left a box of prophecies and it is alleged that all the ills of the world will be cured when it is opened. This however, can only be done in the presence of a group of Bishops. The box is kept in Bedford under the guardianship of the Panacea society and years after her death they still remind the world of it through newspaper advertisements which read "War, disease, crime and banditry will increase until the Bishops open Joanna Southcott's box" The Society continues to send out strips of linen which are said to possess therapeutic qualities. A free leaflet can be obtained from the Panacea Society, Bedford, England. Joanna Southcott was one of the most remarkable of modern religious fanatics and is buried in St. John's Wood churchyard in London