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Group Meetings

Bluestocking meetings met several needs for the group. They functioned as ways to increase and maintain correspondence networks, and provided alternative methods of socialization that did not include cards and alcohol. The entertainment was rigorous intellectual conversation, mixed with tea and literature readings. The gatherings provided ways for educated and conservative women to address the problems of their time in a productive and informed way.

This image, "Reading from Molière" (1728), by Jean François de Troy, shows a group listening to a lecture from the French satirist. This French salon meeting was very similar to those held by the British.

In an advertisement for these meetings of the “little Societies”, Hannah More described the meetings as “composed of persons distinguished, in general, for their rank, talents, or respectable character, who met frequently at Mrs. Vesey’s and at a few other houses, for the sole purpose of conversation, and were different in no respect from other parties, but that the company did not play at cards”. More explains these group meetings in her famous poem, “Bas Bleu: Or, Conversation”, as the intersection between tea, conversation, and wit:

Rise, incense pure from fragrant Tea,
Delicious incense, worthy Thee!
Hail, Conversation, heav'nly fair,
Thou bliss of life, and balm of care,
Still may thy gentle reign extend,
And taste with wit and science blend!

The meetings were run by salonneires, such as Elizabeth Montagu, Elizabeth Vesey, and Frances Boscawen, who wanted to hold meetings to raise the moral, intellectual and cultural standards of their time. The hostesses took turns hosting events where London literary figures often were often the subject of the evening. The role of the hostess was large and integral to the meeting. These leading women organized and directed the gatherings, selected the guests, structured the curriculum, and facilitated discussion. The prime desire of the Bluestocking meetings was to create a diverse body to facilitate instructive and lively conversation, and this criterion was more important than considerations of rank, wealth, or class.

In many cases, the salonneires did not actually involve themselves in the conversation; they took on a truly feminine and domestic role by supporting and facilitating the events and conversation of others. They wrote merely enough to maintain status as “writers”, and made sure to speak and question well within the scope of the social hierarchy.