Life
?1715-1791, Mrs Vesey; leader of literary society, she inaugurated the
Blue Stocking salon; dg. of Thomas Vesey, m. William Handcock, and later
but before 1746, Agmondesham Vesey, friend of Edmund Burke, and member
of Dr Johnson’s Club; her salon ran from 1770-84; became imbecile,
1789. ODNB OCEL
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References
Margaret Drabble, ed., Oxford Companion of English Literature,
ed. (OUP 1985), calls her a blue Stocking hostess [who] determined with
support of her husband, an Irish MP, to open her doors to an entirely
new kind of evening party. Horace Walpole described her gatherings as
Babels. Shared with Mrs. Montague and Mrs Boscawen the triple crown among
the Blue Stocking hostesses of the ensuing 50 years, according to Hannah
More in her poem Bas Bleu.
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