Hester Thrale
Encyclopedia
Kingdom of Great Britain
The former Kingdom of Great Britain, sometimes described as the 'United Kingdom of Great Britain', That the Two Kingdoms of Scotland and England, shall upon the 1st May next ensuing the date hereof, and forever after, be United into One Kingdom by the Name of GREAT BRITAIN. was a sovereign...
diarist, author
Author
An author is broadly defined as "the person who originates or gives existence to anything" and that authorship determines responsibility for what is created. Narrowly defined, an author is the originator of any written work.-Legal significance:...
, and patron of the arts. Her diaries
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
and correspondence are an important source of information about Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
and 18th-century life.
Biography
Thrale was born at Bodvel Hall, Caernarvonshire, Wales. As a member of the powerful Salusbury FamilySalusbury Family
The Salusbury family is an Anglo-Welsh family notable for their social prominence, wealth, literary contributions and philanthropy. The family started a bank, Salusbury and Co., which later shut down during the Great Depression.-Rise to prominence:...
, she belonged to one of the most illustrious Welsh
Wales
Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...
land-owning dynasties of the Georgian era
Georgian era
The Georgian era is a period of British history which takes its name from, and is normally defined as spanning the reigns of, the first four Hanoverian kings of Great Britain : George I, George II, George III and George IV...
. She was a direct descendant of Katheryn of Berain
Katheryn of Berain
Katheryn of Berain , sometimes called Mam Cymru , was a Welsh noblewoman noted for her four marriages and her extensive network of descendants and relations.-Family:...
. Her father was John Salusbury.
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
, she married the rich brewer Henry Thrale
Henry Thrale
Henry Thrale was an 18th century English Member of Parliament and a close friend of Samuel Johnson. Like his father, he was the proprietor of the large London brewery, H. Thrale & Co....
on 11 October 1763, at St. Anne's Chapel, Soho
Soho
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster and part of the West End of London. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shops as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable...
, London. They had 12 children and lived at Streatham Park
Streatham
Streatham is a district in Surrey, England, located in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The area is identified in the London Plan as one of 35 major centres in Greater London.-History:...
. However, the marriage was often strained; her husband was often slighted by members of the Court and may well have married to improve his social status. The Thrales' eldest daughter, Hester
Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith
Hester Maria Elphinstone, Viscountess Keith born Hester Maria Thrale was a British literary correspondent and intellectual. She was the eldest child of Hester Thrale, diarist, author and confidante of Samuel Johnson, and Henry, a wealthy brewer and patron of the arts...
, became a viscountess.
After her marriage, Mrs Thrale was liberated and free to associate with whom she pleased. Due to her husband's financial status, she was able to enter London society, as a result of which she met Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
, James Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, Bishop Thomas Percy, Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith
Oliver Goldsmith was an Irish writer, poet and physician known for his novel The Vicar of Wakefield , his pastoral poem The Deserted Village , and his plays The Good-Natur'd Man and She Stoops to Conquer...
and other literary figures, including the young Fanny Burney, whom she took with her to Gay Street
Gay Street, Bath
Gay Street in Bath, Somerset, England, links Queen Square to The Circus. It was designed by John Wood, the Elder in 1735 and completed by his son John Wood, the Younger. Much of the road has been designated as Grade I listed buildings....
, Bath. (There is some evidence that she was jealous of the attention given to the youthful novelist.) Johnson visited Wales in Thrale's company on several occasions. In 1775 he wrote two verses for her, the first in celebration of her 35th birthday, and another in Latin to honour her.
Following her husband's death (4 April 1781), she fell in love with and, on 25 July 1784, married Gabriel Mario Piozzi, an Italian music teacher. This caused a rift with Johnson, which was only perfunctorily mended shortly before his death. The levelling marriage also earned her the disapproval of Fanny Burney (who would in 1793 marry the impoverished, Catholic émigré Alexandre D'Arblay). With her second husband, Hester retired to Brynbella
Brynbella
Brynbella is a neoclassical villa built near the village of Tremeirchion in Denbighshire, northeast Wales, by Hester Piozzi and her husband, Gabriel Piozzi. It was the seat of the Salusbury Family from 1794 until 1920...
, a specially-built country house on her Bach y Graig estate in the Vale of Clwyd
Vale of Clwyd
The Vale of Clwyd is a tract of low-lying ground in the county of Denbighshire in northeast Wales. The Vale extends south-southwestwards from the coast of the Irish Sea for some 20 miles forming a triangle of low ground bounded on its eastern side by the well-defined scarp of the Clwydian Range...
, near Tremeirchion
Tremeirchion
Tremeirchion is a small residential community in Denbighshire, Wales. It is located on the B5429 road, to the north east of Denbigh and to the west of St Asaph....
village in north Wales
North Wales
North Wales is the northernmost unofficial region of Wales. It is bordered to the south by the counties of Ceredigion and Powys in Mid Wales and to the east by the counties of Shropshire in the West Midlands and Cheshire in North West England...
. During this time she began to reflect heavily on her ancestry, and for a time became obsessed with the idea of reclaiming her father's Canadian lands in Herring Cove, an enclave of Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
.
After Johnson's death, she published Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson
Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson
The Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson or the Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. During the Last Twenty Years of His Life by Hester Thrale, also known as Hester Lynch Piozzi, was first published 26 March 1786. It was based on the various notes and anecdotes of Samuel Johnson that Thrale...
(1786) and her letters (1788). Together with her diaries which were known as Thraliana
Thraliana
The Thraliana was a diary kept by Hester Thrale and is part of the genre known as table talk. Although the work began as Thrale's diary focused on her experience with her family, it slowly changed focus to emphasise various anecdotes and stories about the life of Samuel Johnson...
, and were not published until 1949, these sources help to fill out the often biased picture of Johnson presented in Boswell's Life. Johnson often stayed with the Thrale household and had his own room, above the library at Streatham in which he worked. Hester's papers provide more insight into his composition process.
Her Retrospection: or a review of the most striking and important events, characters, situations, and their consequences which the last eighteen hundred years have presented to the view of mankind was an attempt at a popular history of that period, but it was not received well by critics, some of whom patently resented female intrusion into the male preserve of history. Posterity has been kinder. According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, "it has since been seen as a feminist history, concerned to show changes in manners and mores in so far as they affected women; it has also been judged to anticipate Marxian history in its keen apprehension of reification: 'machines imitated mortals to unhoped perfection, and men found out they were themselves machines'."
Hester Piozzi died at Royal York Crescent in Clifton, Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, of complications after a fall, and was buried on 16 May 1821 near Brynbella in the churchyard of Corpus Christi Church, Tremeirchion, next to Piozzi. A plaque inside the church is inscribed "Dr. Johnson's Mrs. Thrale. Witty, Vivacious and Charming, in an age of Genius She held ever a foremost Place". Fanny Burney eulogized her, going so far as to make a comparison with Germaine de Staël.
From the time of her death to nearly the present, she was referred to by scholars as Johnson had referred to her as "Mrs Thrale" or "Hester Thrale." However, she is now often referred to as either "Hester Lynch Piozzi" or "Mrs Piozzi."
Author Lillian de la Torre featured Mrs. Thrale in the story "The Stolen Christmas Box," part of her series featuring Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
as a detective.
See also
- Salusbury FamilySalusbury FamilyThe Salusbury family is an Anglo-Welsh family notable for their social prominence, wealth, literary contributions and philanthropy. The family started a bank, Salusbury and Co., which later shut down during the Great Depression.-Rise to prominence:...
- John Salusbury Piozzi SalusburyJohn Salusbury Piozzi SalusburySir John Salusbury Piozzi Salusbury GCH was a British civil servant and, briefly, a military officer during the Battle of Waterloo. He was named after his adopted grandfather, Sir John Salusbury.-Early life:...
- adopted son - Lleweni HallLleweni HallLleweni Hall was a stately home in Denbighshire, northeast Wales Lleweni Hall (Welsh, Plas Lleweni, sometimes also referred to as Llewenny Palace) was a stately home in Denbighshire, northeast Wales Lleweni Hall (Welsh, Plas Lleweni, sometimes also referred to as Llewenny Palace) was a stately...