The Blue Stockings Society was an informal women's social and educational movement in England in the mid-18th century that emphasised education and mutual cooperation. It was founded in the early 1750s by Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey and others as a literary discussion group, a step away from traditional, non-intellectual women's activities. Both men and women were invited to attend, including the botanist, translator and publisher Benjamin Stillingfleet, who, due to his financial standing, did not dress for the occasion as formally as was customary and deemed "proper," in consequence appearing in everyday blue worsted stockings.
Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo, 1778, 130 cm × 150 cm (52 in × 61 in), by Richard Samuel. The sitters are: Anna Letitia Barbauld (1743–1825), poet and writer; Elizabeth Carter (1717–1806), scholar and writer; Elizabeth Griffith (1727–1793), playwright and novelist; Angelica Kauffmann (1741–1807), painter; Charlotte Lennox (1720–1804), writer; Catharine Macaulay (1731–1791), historian and political polemicist; Elizabeth Montagu (1718–1800);
The centre house, 16 Royal Crescent, Bath, was used as a residence and to host Blue Stockings Society events by Elizabeth Montagu
Satiric drawing by Thomas Rowlandson (1756–1827), "Breaking Up of the Blue Stocking Club" (1815)
Elizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonnière, literary critic and writer, who helped to organize and lead the Blue Stockings Society. Her parents were both from wealthy families with strong ties to the British peerage and learned life. She was sister to Sarah Scott, author of A Description of Millenium [sic] Hall and the Country Adjacent. She married Edward Montagu, a man with extensive landholdings, to become one of the richer women of her era. She devoted this fortune to fostering English and Scottish literature and to the relief of the poor.
Elizabeth Montagu, mezzotint engraving, by John Raphael Smith after a portrait by Sir Joshua Reynolds, published 10 April 1776, 20 x 14 inches. In 1776 the Reynolds original was in possession of her cousin, the Lord Primate of Ireland, Richard Robinson, 1st Baron Rokeby. Now recorded as part of National Trust collection, item NT 592596, mezzotint, Treasurer's House, York, but not on show
Mrs Montagu's father, Robinson, is in the centre of this group portrait of Virtuosis by Gawen Hamilton.
Elizabeth Montagu, as Anne Boleyn, black and white reproduction of a miniature by Christian Friedrich Zincke, in a friendship box, c. 1740
Elizabeth Montagu by Allan Ramsay (1713–1784) in 1762.