Tag: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Georgian, 18th Century history, Georgian Lords, Health and Medicine

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: The 18th-century aristocracy and an early experiment in immunology

This year there will be much talk of vaccinations, a word derived from Edward Jenner’s use of cowpox to immunize humans against smallpox, but the groundwork for the science of immunology in Britain was laid 300 years ago by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and her noble patrons of the new practice of inoculation. Dr Charles Littleton investigates further… The New Year will see a large-scale … Continue reading Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: The 18th-century aristocracy and an early experiment in immunology

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18th Century history, Elections, Georgian Lords, Women and Parliament

‘A little door to get in, and a great crowd without’: how to get elected to Parliament in early Georgian Britain

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, is still renowned as a poet, commentator on Ottoman society, from when she accompanied her husband on an embassy to Istanbul, and an early proponent in England of inoculation against small pox. Lady Mary’s letters can also offer us a view of how members of the Georgian House of Lords and their families were involved in elections to the ‘unreformed’ House of Commons. Continue reading ‘A little door to get in, and a great crowd without’: how to get elected to Parliament in early Georgian Britain

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