The Brood Hen of Faction: Mrs. Macaulay and Radical Politics, 1765-1775

Abstract

The middle years of the eighteenth century in England were on the whole a period when few women made any impact on the public scene. Writing gradually became a respectable way for a woman to earn a living, but women writers generally confined their efforts to the novel, belle lettres, or instructional works. The most important exception was Catherine Sawbridge Macaulay. She began to publish first as an historian and then turned to topical political pamphleteering.Descended on both sides from Whiggish City businessmen, Catherine Sawbridge of Olantigh, Kent, married in 1760 George Macaulay. He was a Scots born physician who had wide connections in London, both among Scots and medical men, and among political radicals and non-conformists. Perhaps the most important intimate of the Macaulay circle was Thomas Hollis, a well-to-do republican barrister, bibliophile, and collector of objects of vertu. Other radical friends included several dissenting ministers, among them Caleb Fleming, Theophilus Lindsey, Richard Baron, and Richard Price, and several writers on historical and political subjects, including William Harris, Adam Ferguson, and James Burgh. Catherine's brother, John Sawbridge, was active in City politics, where he had connections both by inheritance and marriage. Thus the Macaulay household offered a meeting place for both theorists and active politicians.