Raising the Curtain

Posted by Verity on July 8, 2025 in Dame designate, History, Literature, Shakespeare, Theatre | 4 comments

I’m indebted to Rob Page, faithful friend of, and sometime contributor to, Damesnet, for drawing my attention to this heartening story of dames revealed – which had completely passed me by.

Last month, Westminster Abbey updated its  website entry about the Shakespeare memorial in Poets’ Corner, to acknowledge that those responsible for reviving Shakespeare’s reputation in the eighteenth century were a group of influential women: the Shakespeare Ladies Club. The most prominent members were Susanna Ashley-Cooper, Countess of Shaftesbury; Mary, Duchess of Montagu; Mary Cowper, Baroness Walsingham; and Elizabeth Boyd, who came together to form the club in 1736.

It was they who promoted revivals of his work in London, and raised money for his memorial through benefit performances at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, and at Covent Garden. The actor David Garrick is credited with bringing about the Shakespeare revival almost single-handedly, but he himself declared, in a speech at the Shakespeare Jubilee in 1769, ‘It was You Ladies that restor’d Shakespeare to the Stage you form’d yourselves into a Society to protect his Fame, and Erected a Monument to his and your own honour in Westminster Abbey.”

Having raised the money, the ladies then brought in four men to help with gaining permission from Westminster Abbey to erect the statue and making payments in connection with it. Strange to say, it’s the men’s names were remembered and the womens’ that had evaporated.

Westminster Abbey’s inclusion of the Shakespeare Ladies’ Club in their website information was recommended by Christine and Jonathan Hainsworth, authors of The Shakespeare Ladies’ Club: The Forgotten Women who Rescued the Bawdy Bard, a new book that sets out to restore to the ladies their rightful recognition.

The women were – quite simply – fanatics. They would meet up much in the manner of a book club to read and discuss Shakespeare’s works, and had a mission to persuade London’s theatrical managers to stage more of his plays.

In this they were spectacularly successful: in 1737 every performance of a Shakespeare play at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, or at Covent Garden was billed as being done ‘At the Desire of Several Ladies of Quality’, and one in every four performances in 1740–41 season in London was of a Shakespeare play.

Poet James Noel’s epilogue of thanks included after a benefit performance of Julius Caesar in 1738 demonstrates how early in their campaign their efforts were acknowledged:

‘But here what humble thanks, what praise is due,

Ow’d to such gen’rous virtue, ow’d to you!
With grief you saw a bard neglected lie,
Whom towring genius living raised so high.
With grief you saw your Shakespeare’s slighted state,
And call’d forth merit from the grave of fate.
Let others boast they smile on living worth;

You give a buried bard a brighter birth.’

But who were these ‘ladies of quality’? The Hainsworths cite Mary, Duchess of Montagu as one of them, though Wikipedia does not currently reflect her contribution. Susanna Ashley Cooper, the Countess of Shaftesbury, was active in artistic circles (a supporter of Handel)  and considered the leader of the club. Mary Cowper, Baroness Walsingham, was the daughter of the 1st Earl Cowper and the cousin of  poet William Cowper, and herself wrote a poem on her involvement with the group: ‘On the Revival of Shakespear’s Plays by the Ladies in 1738’. Not so blue-blooded as the other three, but no less distinguished, was Elizabeth Boyd, one of the earliest women in Britain to make a living from her pen. With the proceeds from her first play she set up a stationer’s shop near Leicester Square.

You will notice that I have not named the four men whom the ladies co-opted to their cause. No explanation needed…