ARISTOCRATIC WOMEN
The Social, Political and Cultural History of Rich and Powerful Women

Part 2: The Correspondence and Diaries of Charlotte Georgiana, Lady Bedingfeld (formerly Jerningham) c1779-1833, together with the letters of Anna Seward, c1791-1804 and Lady Stafford, c1774-1837
from Birmingham University Library

Letters to Charlotte from her mother and many other members of two large and important Catholic families (Bedingfelds and Jerninghams) form the heart of this collection.

The Diaries and more than 1500 letters record their private lives during the transition from the late Georgian to the pre-Victorian era.

Topics covered include:

- Mrs Siddons at the theatre (a letter of 24 December 1784 gives details of a performance of Isabella and regrets that they were so close to the stage. They shared a box with Mr Pitt, who inspired them more than Mrs Siddons)
- Fanny Dillon's wedding; Advice on clothes, reading and religion
- Charlotte's expenses of £200 a year
- Description of a visit to the Queen's Drawing Room
- European travels, events in France, news of Catholic friends and the exiled French Court
- Social gatherings in London and Bath, dinner parties, balls and social outings
- Madame de Stal's soire
- Children's education
Lady Primrose's elopement
- Charlotte's Diary covering her attendance at Court, her supervision of Princess Louisa of Saxe Weimar at Brighton, and her attendance on Queen Adelaide at Windsor, 1830-33.

There are 6 volumes recording social events, private thoughts and gossip. A page from the diary recording a visit to Bath is illustrated above.

A letter to Charlotte at Yarmouth, dated 18 June 1806, from Edward Jerningham discusses the books he is reading, Lord Melville’s trial and Mrs Fitzherbert’s, as well as visits to the opera. A letter from her niece to Charlotte at Bath describes her first few days at school in October 1815. Two weeks later there is another letter on the same subject with a note at the end from Dame Magdalen McMillan, reporting on her progress. The next letter gives news on Lady Jerningham’s visit.

Anna Seward, is well known as the "Swan of Lichfield", author of the poem "Llangollen Vale" (1795) and as correspondent and friend of the Ladies of Llangollen, Lady Eleanor Butler and Miss Sarah Ponsonby. Her letters reproduced here are full of accounts of London friends, Mr Garrick, the theatre, the fate of Louis XVI, comparisons between life in Paris and at Winterbourne, local affairs and the discussion of poetry and literature. A letter to Anna from her father Thomas Seward, dated Eyam, 24 November 1764 expresses relief that she has rejected the suit of a military gentleman and sends regards to London friends "particularly Mr Garrick." Anna’s letter of 29 October 1798 discusses the fitness of Thomas Dowdeswell’s marriage to Miss Paisley and the qualities that ought to be possessed by a woman to be worthy of Colonel Dowdeswell.

The Letters of Lady Stafford, 1774-1837, cover an influential Protestant family living at Trentham in Staffordshire. Most letters are to her daughter, Charlotte, and feature advice on behaviour, religion and handwriting; accounts and descriptions of London Society and the Theatre; Lord Gower's European travels; comments on the bad conduct of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu after her marriage; views on Pitt and politics; the French Revolution; and details of Charlotte's marriage to Lord Worcester.

This project will be of great interest for scholars of eighteenth and nineteenth century history, gender studies, literature and women's studies.