Shakespeare Ladies

The Shakespeare Ladies Club (Est. 1736)

In 1730s London, most male intellectuals, even those who admired his work, lamented that Shakespeare was not better educated, that his characters were not better bred, and that his plays were not more in keeping with Aristotelian conventions.

Like Shakespeare, Georgian women also went without a university education. In the eighteenth century, anything beyond a rudimentary education for girls was deemed unnecessary, pointless, and even dangerous. Despite this, the determined members of the Shakespeare Ladies Club took on the intellectual heavyweights of the day and bested them all, establishing the once ‘almost-forgotten Shakespeare’ as England’s national poet.

The existence and achievements of the Shakespeare Ladies Club were practically forgotten for nearly 300 years, but thanks to the efforts of Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth, Michael Dobson, Genevieve Kirk, Fiona Ritchie, Emmett L Avery, and a handful of other academics and Shakespeare fans, their story is at last coming to light.

I first learned about the club in 2021, from a talk by Robin Williams, Phd. If you are curious about the role women played in saving Shakespeare’s literary legacy, I highly recommend clicking the link below.

Professor Robin Williams on How Women Saved Shakespeare

18th-Century Shakespeare Ladies Club Members

In an article in The Shakespeare Quarterly of 1958, Emmett L Avery gave an excellent account of the club’s success but said that their identities have ‘eluded our times.’

Since then, Mary Montagu and Susanna Ashley-Cooper have been identified as members, and there is also evidence that both Elizabeth Boyd and Mary Cowper were also part of the club. Dorothy Boyle, Countess of Burlington, could also have been one of their number, as first intimated by Genevieve Kirk, author of And His Works in a Glass Case: The Bard in the Garden and the Legacy of the Shakespeare Ladies Club

Each of these women is represented in my forthcoming novel, The Women Who Saved Shakespeare. I’ve spent five years writing and researching their stories, and I really hope I’ve done them justice. From the modesty and honesty with which she talks about her own struggles as a writer, I am hopeful that Elizabeth Boyd, at least, would excuse my inaccuracies.

Mary Montagu, Duchess of Montagu

Mary Montagu was a woman ahead of her time. Outspoken, passionate, and determined, she was a leading light in the Shakespeare Ladies Club and, together with her husband, helped rescue and educate Ignatius Sancho. Ignatius was himself a keen Shakespeare fan and the first black man to gain the vote in England.

The following stanza is taken from a poem by Frances Hawling, published in 1752.

Here, Hawling describes how the ladies’ wit and charm are spreading across the world in a way that war and violence once had.

‘Our Sails, throughout the distant Main,

Shall spread the Virtue of your Charms,

And tell them how Supreme we reign

In Wit, as heretofore in Arms.’

Susanna Ashley-Cooper, Countess of Shaftesbury

Susanna Ashley-Cooper was a passionate supporter of the arts, including Shakespeare’s works. She was a subscriber to Elizabeth Boyd’s novel and also a patron to the playwright John Gay and the classical composer George Frideric Handel. These lines are taken from a poem written by Thomas Cooke in praise of the Countess and other members of the Shakespeare Ladies Club.

To the Right Honourable Countess of Shaftesbury

‘Fair Patroness of long departed Worth

O! Thou, who lately call’d our Genius forth.

Who like a Guardian Angel dids’t inspire

Thousands and taught them what they should admire

O! Thou, whose Spirit wak’s a drowsy Age

To pay due Regard to Shakespeare’s Page.’

Mary Cowper

Portrait of an Unknown Young Woman by Allan Ramsay

Aged just seventeen, Mary Cowper was the youngest of the Shakespeare Ladies. She was hugely impressed and inspired by their work, paying tribute in her poem On the Revival of Shakespeare’s Plays by the Ladies in 1738. In this, she calls to women (‘ye Gen’rous Fair!) to ‘reform the stage’ and so ‘Mend the Age.’ From correspondence recently discovered by Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth, it seems that she herself became a member, both recording the club’s efforts for posterity and furthering their cause.

Here are a few lines from her poem. Stirring stuff indeed!

See Wisdom, like a Stream, whose rapid Course

Has long been stopp’d, now with redoubled Force

Breaks out – the softer Sex redeems the Land

And Shakespeare lives again by their Command.

Unfortunately, I have been unable to find a portrait of Mary Cowper, but I like to think she bears some resemblance to the young woman above.

Lady Dorothy Savile, Countess of Burlington

For three hundred years, credit for the raising of the Westminster Shakespeare memorial has been awarded to Lady Burlington’s husband and three other men. This is despite a speech by Shakespeare enthusiast David Garrick, who said ‘you ladies’ raised the money and arranged the installation.

Cousin to Susanna and sometime friend of the poet Alexander Pope, it seems likely that Lady Burlington would have been a member of the club.

Elizabeth Boyd, Poet and Author

Portrait of an 18th-century lady – Anonymous

Unlike the other known members, Elizabeth Boyd was not a member of the nobility, and largely for this reason, no portrait of her exists. For the time being, I have chosen this portrait of an anonymous eighteenth-century lady to represent her.

Despite Elizabeth’s claim in her novel advertisement (below) that she was ‘never ambitious of the ‘Name of Author’, she was a prolific writer. Through the power of her pen, she supported herself and her mother, who had been worn out through the ‘charge of many children’. I think she would be delighted that so much of her work survives to this day, offering a unique insight into the life, struggles, and passions of an eighteenth-century working woman.

Below the advertisement is an extract from her 1739 play Don Sancho, in which a statue of Shakespeare is brought to life when he is at last awarded the respect and commendation he deserves. This precedes the Shakespeare Ladies Club’s most visible achievement, the installation of the Shakespeare Memorial in Westminster Abbey, by just a few months. For this reason, Elizabeth Boyd is credited as a club member.

All the women of Shakespeare Ladies Club were celebrated with a Shakespeare Ladies Tea Party on International Women’s Day 2026, and my novel, based on the original membership, will be released on 28th May 2026.

Click the poster to find out about my Shakespeare Ladies Tea Party at Festival of Women’s Art and Music (WAMfest).

Mai Black, author of The Women Who Saved Shakespeare

Further Reading

If you’d like to learn more about the original Shakespeare Ladies Club, Georgian Theatre and Literary London in the Eighteenth-Century, you might like to try some of the following:

The Women Who Saved Shakespeare, a novel by Mai Black (me)

Don Sancho, The Female Page, and other works by Elizabeth Boyd, available from The Wellcome Library in London

The Making of the National Poet by Michael Dobson

Women and Shakespeare in the Eighteenth Century by Fiona Ritchie

The Shakespeare Ladies Club by Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth

The Shakespeare Ladies Club by Emmett L Avery (Article in Shakespeare Quarterly)

And His Works in a Glass Case: The Bard in the Garden and the Legacy of the Shakespeare Ladies Club by Genevieve Kirk

Sweet Swan of Avon: Did a Woman Write Shakespeare? by Robin Williams, Ph.D.

Theatre Royal Drury Lane by W MacQueen Pope

The London Stage 1729-1747 by Arthur H Scouten

Eighteenth-Century Drama: The London Stage Database

Mr Foote’s Other Leg by Ian Kelly