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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