The New Female Coterie
The New Female Coterie was an 18th century London social club.
The exact founding date is unknown, though it is assumed to be circa 1770, when Caroline Stanhope, Countess of Harrington was blackballed from joining The Female Coterie, an exclusive 18th century social club for aristocrats, though its name was probably derived from the press.[1][2]
The New Female Coterie became a social outlet for "demi-reps",[3] a word Henry Fielding coined in 1749 in his novel Tom Jones to refer to a woman ‘who intrigues with every Man she likes, under the Name and Appearance of Virtue’.[4] The members came to include high-status women who had been publicly shamed for promiscuity or adultery, such as Lady Henrietta Grosvenor, Seymour Dorothy Fleming, Penelope Ligonier, Lady Margaret Adams, Lady Derby, Lady Ann Cork, and the Honorable Catherine Newton.[2][5] Meetings took place at the exclusive brothel on King's Place run by Sarah Pendergast, a friend of the Stanhopes, and included supper and gambling as well as a forum for discussion, an outlet for disgraced women who would otherwise have been ostracised from their 'respectable' female family and friends.[2]
The journalist Thomas Robertson attended several of their meetings, and reported on them in the Rambler's Magazine. In one article his coverage revealed that the topics under discussion included the moral and philosophical implications of sexual relationships as well as their pleasures, ranging from inequality of men and women within marriage, to the ethical nuances of adultery.[6][2] In another the members were satirised under aliases for their lascivious discussions.[7]
References
- ^ Russell, Gillian. (2007). Women, sociability and theatre in Georgian London. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 69. ISBN 0-521-86732-0. OCLC 76935907.
- ^ a b c d Rubenhold, Hallie. (2008). Lady Worsley's whim : an eighteenth-century tale of sex, scandal and divorce. London: Chatto & Windus. pp. 180, 176. ISBN 978-0-7011-7980-9. OCLC 241029175.
- ^ ""demi-rep, n."". Oxford English Dictionary Online.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754. (1952). The history of Tom Jones, a foundling. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica. p. 721. ISBN 0-14-043009-1. OCLC 916883.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Rendell, Mike. (2016). In Bed with the Georgians : Sex, Scandal and Satire in the 18th Century. Havertown: Pen and Sword. ISBN 978-1-4738-8438-0. OCLC 972292379.
- ^ Anon. "The Court of Scandal or the New Female Coterie". Rambler's Magazine. June 1873: 270–1.
- ^ Robertson, Thomas (July 1783). "Cytherian Discussions". Rambler's Magazine: 248–250.