The WS Lecture 2025 is on Monday 28 April in partnership with University of Westminster, with the dynamic duo of Laura Bates and Gemma Cairney. It will be held in its stunning art deco Regents Street Cinema, and live streamed to our friends and supporters all around the world. Tickets are now available here!
What connects Queen Latifah and Wollstonecraft? Presented by Salma El-Wardany BBC Pick of the Week explores how powerful women from the past to the present have made their mark on the world and continue to do so.
On a sunny summer day, Sarah Bonfim and Bee Rowlatt welcomed a group of female students from Beverly High School who had travelled directly from Beverly to London. The students made their way to St Pancras Old Church, where they had the opportunity to listen to and ask questions about Wollstonecraft's works. It was a truly memorable experience for all of us, as the girls shared their interpretations of quotes from A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, and offered their own fascinating insights.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s life and legacy is the subject of this BBC Radio 4 programme exploring the workings of books, plays, and stories. Our chair, Bee Rowlatt, discusses Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman with presenter John Yorke. Their engaging conversation is humorous and inspiring, and touches on the furore surrounding the Newington Green memorial.
Listen here.
Barbara Hearn OBE and Bee Rowlatt enjoyed an evening of wonderful conversation as guests of The Worshipful Company of Wax Chandlers and our Patron, Dame Fiona Woolf, along with the Guild of Young Freemen. Barbara and Bee shared the work of the Wollstonecraft Society; the story of the campaign for the Wollstonecraft memorial, and why Wollstonecraft remains so relevant in today’s society.
At this year’s WS Lecture we were delighted to welcome Baroness Chakrabarti, a prominent British human rights lawyer, who talked about her new book Human Rights: The Case for the Defence with Professor Conor Gearty, and Bee Rowlatt, who, in addition to being our chair, is a writer, public speaker, and programmer of events at the British Library. The event was chaired by Professor Alpa Shah, who has been a great friend to the WS and whose new book is here. Enjoy the WS Lecture here.
Click the image to purchase the book
Why did you write this book?
In truth, because I was approached by Princeton University Press to do so. Why they might have done so and why I accepted probably overlaps. I had edited A Vindication of the Rights of Men and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Hints for Cambridge University Press, lectured and published on Wollstonecraft. What I hoped to do was to think of her as she wanted us to do, namely as a philosopher and a moralist. What was her ontology, epistemology, metaphysics, theory of the mind, of agency, human nature, and so forth I wanted to ask and bring together in one volume. However, when I turned to writing it, I realised that having spent much ink on what she criticised, I had no idea what she liked and very little of what she loved. That was what I first sought to establish as I did not mean her to be seen an indefatigable nay-sayer and kill-joy.
What is a 'philosophy of humanity?
It is a philosophy that addresses the human condition and, in Wollstonecraft’s case, is driven by a love of humankind, a sense that we are by nature benevolent beings, and that the ills of the world are not necessities. We can come to understand their causes and effect remedies such as to live in communities that are free from subjection, exploitation, and violence.
What did MW stand against that still hasn't been solved today?
A very great deal. I am tempted to say that nothing she stood against has been solved. She decried slavery. How could we claim to have eradicated slavery the world over! Cases emerge even in countries that have long outlawed it and speak of its often-hidden nature today. Human trafficking, sex trafficking, and what is effectively slave labour are rife today. Wollstonecraft would be horrified to see not only their prevalence, but we appear to countenance the marketing of people or human organs.
She would be appalled to know of the way women and girls are treated wherever they are denied education and the ability to obtain a formation that could give them financial independence. She would find it very difficult to believe how many girls and women are not free to develop mentally and physically, to exercise their minds and bodies, and to move freely in society.
She would likewise be stunned by the figures we see regularly in the news about the number of women who are killed by men they know, by domestic violence, by sexual violence, by the need for victims of abuse to find refuges, and by the disproportionate lack of criminal convictions and punishments. As someone who had witnessed the treatment of her mother at the hands of her father, she would fight in whatever ways she could to expose and end the violence inflicted on women worldwide.
As someone who criticised vanity and conspicuous consumption, she would be astonished by our economy, by fast fashion, and throw away culture. She wanted us to stop living to appear, stop gaining a sense of our self-worth through the mirror.
If anything, all is worse than in her own time. There are to be sure declaration of human rights, slavery is officially long abolished, women are educated, free to move, and in positions of power in many places, but her concerns about poverty, sexual violence, and the treatment of human beings as things would by no means be assuaged.
What is the role of passion in politics?
Wollstonecraft wrote with passion in defence of the rights of men and women. Being passionate was a quality in her view both in, so called, private and public life. Yet, she also realised that a passionate immediate response to such events as a revolution was not without danger. It could blind one to the eventual consequences of dramatic social and political changes or responses on the world stage. As she lived in France under the Terror, she saw for herself not only its violence, but the opportunism of those who manipulated the instability for their private gain. And so, while dispassionate politics was not possible or indeed probably even desirable in the world as it was and is, in a world as it should be, a world without all that she denounced, one can imagine the end of such passion, and therefore of politics as we understand it.
Our work is featured in this blog for the East End Women's Museum
WS was delighted to co-author this article for Primary History along with the brilliant charity Lifting Limits - on why schools should consider teaching their students about Mary Wollstonecraft, and how to link a historical figure with rights and gender equality issues here and now. See this document
The WS Lecture 2023 was in person for the first time, and we were delighted to welcome the award-winning and critically-acclaimed science writer Angela Saini to talk about her book The Patriarchs. Thank you to our friend Professor Alpa Shah, and all the team at the LSE's International Institute of Inequalities for hosting us. You can watch here event recording and listen to the event podcast.
Find out how our Wollstonecraft Schools programme helps teachers as well as students. The project is delivered in partnership with teachers because we know how important it is to be linked to the national curriculum. Here are four ways that it fulfils KS2 curriculum requirements for History, English, British Values, and PSHE.
Our work is featured in this blog for the East End Women's Museum.
In November the Wollstonecraft Society returned to visit the students at La Sainte Union school and talk to them about Wollstonecraft's life, achievements and struggles.
Northmoor Academy's Year 5 children led the country in becoming the UK's first Wollstonecraft School.
Using our education programme, pupils spent two lessons learning about the life and legacy of Mary Wollstonecraft then put what they'd learned into a human rights assembly for the rest of their school. They were even inspired to share a rousing rendition of The Power in Me, a song they felt reflected Mary Wollstonecraft's courage! (video below)
Our Chair Bee Rowlatt visited to present the children with their certificate. She said "Northmoor Academy's talented students showed an understanding of Mary Wollstonecraft's human rights message by making it their own. I was so inspired by their confident delivery! I want to congratulate the children and staff of Northmoor Academy for celebrating the ideas of equality; of achieving against the odds and of human rights for all - these are the ideas that Mary Wollstonecraft also stood for."
Antony Hughes, CEO of the The Harmony Trust, which runs Northmoor Academy, said: “It has been wonderful to see a new generation of children being inspired by Mary’s phenomenal achievements and bravery. She is a timeless role model for children and we are so proud of our pupils and the enthusiasm they showed in this project.”
The Wollstonecraft Society is excited about delivering more certificates, as more schools up and down the country sign up to the Wollstonecraft School programme. If you'd like to learn more please visit our resources page and if you need further information don't hesitate to get in touch at education@wollstonecraftsociety.org.
The Oldham Times covered Northmoor Academy becoming the country's first Wollstonecraft School - read the article here!
In case you hadn’t noticed, Mary Wollstonecraft is Having. A. Moment.
From an appearance in Netflix’s record-breaking Bridgerton and a surge in academic interest, to shout-outs in the London Review of Books and the Financial Times, to a slew of new and forthcoming books and the premiere of a one-woman stage show: Wollstonecraft’s bold and brilliant vision of how the world could be is finding new resonance in our challenging times.
Feminists and activists around the world are drawing on Wollstonecraft’s radical thinking to fuel their own fires. We’ve been delighted by the enthusiastic response our own educational resources have received from primary schools across the UK. Earlier this month, the iconic Rebecca Solnit sought solace at Wollstonecraft’s grave at Old St Pancras in the wake of the US Supreme Court’s devastating anti-abortion ruling (which she writes about here).
“[Mary Wollstonecraft] will always stand for a kind of enlightenment that is […] under quite fierce attack at the moment.”
Also bringing this timeless thinker to new audiences is author Samantha Silva, whose fictional reimaging of Wollstonecraft’s too-short life, Love and Fury, was first released in 2021. Described by writer Annabel Abbs as “a luminous love-letter” to its protagonist, the book is suffused with Wollstonecraft’s unbreakable, inimitable spirit.
Love and Fury begins in 1797 with the birth of Mary Shelley, the start of her life signalling the impending end of her mother’s. The action unspools in almost-real time as William Godwin sits at Mary’s bedside, willing his wife to remain in the world. Also keeping watch is Mrs Blenkinsop, the midwife who, summoned to assist with the birth, is enchanted by the rare combination of softness and strength she sees in her client.
The baby is sickly, and “Mrs B” suggests that Mary “talk her into the world” by sharing her own life story. That story, Mary owns, is not always pretty: “There are triumphs in it, a scattering of joys, but the beautiful sits side by side with the grotesque; I cannot separate them.” Silva deftly weaves together these disparate strands, alternating between Mary’s narration of her life and the perspective of the experienced but anxious Mrs Blenkinsop. Fanny Blood, William Godwin, Joseph Johnson: the gang’s all here, brought to life with skill and attention. It’s clear that Silva has done a huge amount of research, but the book never feels heavy-handed: the period detail serves to enliven a timeless story of a brilliant woman whose life is cut short by inadequate medical care.
Those already familiar with Wollstonecraft will meet here the Mary they know and love: curious, huge-hearted, enamoured with nature, chafing against the constraints of her time. Newcomers will also find lots here to love. Love and Fury stands alone as a rollicking good read, and serves as the perfect introduction to Wollstonecraft’s life and work.
“Mary Wollstonecraft didn’t just give birth to modern feminism, she invented the life,” says Samantha Silva. “I wanted to know her as flesh, blood, heat, want, fury, hope, despair - what it was then to be a woman in a crushing patriarchy, and stand up to it, call it by its name, at every turn. She forged a path that’s still ours to take. We need her beside us as much as ever.”
Thanks to Allison & Busby, friends and followers of the Wollstonecraft Society can enjoy a discount on the paperback and ebook editions of Love and Fury. Visit the Allison & Busby website and use the code thewollsoc (upper- and lower-case letters will both work) to buy the paperback for £5.99 (UK postage and packaging included) or visit your preferred ebook retailer to get the ebook for just £3.99:
You might find this reading guide for Love and Fury by Samantha Silva, from BookBrowse, helpful.
“Intensely moving. Silva’s writing is as fearless as its subject. Love and Fury is like watching newly-colourised archive film burst into life - I knew the story, but I never knew the story like this.”
On 3 May 2022, The Wollstonecraft Society teamed up with LSE Inequalities to host the second annual Wollstonecraft Lecture.
Last year’s inspiring intervention by Professor Amartya Sen set the tone for this year’s event. In a departure from the traditional lecture format, we had the honour of hosting Helena Kennedy QC, in conversation with Fawzia Amini, formerly of Afghanistan’s Supreme Court. They shared the compelling story of the evacuation of women judges during the fall of Kabul in August 2021: an example of international feminist solidarity in action.
If you weren’t able to join live, you can now watch the recording!
Our thanks to panellists Helena Kennedy QC and Fawzia Amini; to our chair, Professor Alpa Shah; to our friends at LSE; and to everyone who helped spread the word about the event.
On Mary Wollstonecraft’s 263rd birthday, the Wollstonecraft Society are excited to announce the launch of the 'Wollstonecraft School' programme - open now to primary schools across Britain. Taking a whole school approach, primary schools will be able to show how they champion human rights in three easy steps by learning about Mary Wollstonecraft and her legacy. In just one week schools can gain their accreditation as human rights champions, with a certificate from the Wollstonecraft Society.
The programme consists of three sessions:
Lesson One - a fun introduction to Mary through an engaging online comic
Lesson Two - group work to consolidate your classes newfound learning and put together an assembly to share it with the rest of their school
An assembly (and maybe a rehearsal or two!) - then use the powerpoint template provided for your class to share Mary’s story with more members of your school
Once you’ve completed steps 1, 2 and 3 - scan in or photograph five of your learner feedback forms and fill in a quick online survey - and we’ll get your certification of accreditation over to you.
All the resources needed can be downloaded for free from the resources page!
Wollstonecraft’s birthday is marked with a live production of An Amazon Stept Out at the Newington Green Meeting House: Wednesday, 27th April. Book to join in-person or online!
Limited places are available for Mary Wollstonecraft and Dissent on Saturday, 30th April: an all-day celebratory series of talks and roundtable discussions. The Wollstonecraft Society will be there!
And finally, on Tuesday, 3rd May, we’ll be hosting the second annual Wollstonecraft Society Lecture, in partnership with LSE International Inequalities Institute. Helena Kennedy QC - one of Britain's most distinguished lawyers, and a champion of civil liberties - will be joined by Fawzia Amini, a senior judge in Afghanistan's Supreme Court. They will share the extraordinary stories behind the evacuation of Afghan women judges following the fall of Kabul in August 2021 - as well as their hopes for the future. This online event is free and open to all: please sign up, and spread the word!
Dearest Readers,
You’ll have seen that a certain Mary Wollstonecraft makes a guest appearance in the first episode of season two of Netflix’s record-smashing Bridgerton.
When besties “Peneloise” are shopping, Eloise laments the lack of substance to Lady Whistledown’s letters and quotes a line from Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792).
If this is the first you’re hearing of Mary Wollstonecraft, we’re here to tell you who she is - and what to read next!
Penelope Featherington (left) and Eloise Bridgerton (right), known to fans as “Peneloise”, in the first episode of season two of Bridgerton, now showing on Netflix
So who was Mary Wollstonecraft?
Often called the foremother of western feminism, Mary Wollstonecraft was a key philosopher of the Enlightenment, and a revolutionary. She overcame limited education and a background of domestic violence to become an educational and political pioneer, and one of the greatest thinkers of the eighteenth century. It’s fair to say Wollstonecraft broke every rule she ever met. Her Vindication of the Rights of Woman demanded gender equality back in 1792, and her earlier Rights of Men (1790) is a blistering hot campaign for what we now call Human Rights. Wollstonecraft cared more about education than anything else, and she also fell in love, a lot. She lived at a hundred miles an hour, never stopped trying to change the world, and died aged only 38 after giving birth to the future author of Frankenstein, Mary Shelley.
Eloise Bridgerton in the first episode of season two of Netflix’s Bridgerton
What to read next?
Letters from Norway (“Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark”). This uncategorisable book is a complete joy. Don’t be put off by the weirdly long title – that’s just how they did it in the 1790s. Letters from Norway is a series of letters that charts Wollstonecraft’s mysterious treasure hunt around the Norwegian coast, looking for a shipment of missing silver, with her toddler for company. This mashup of travelogue/memoir/love letter to humanity contains all the politics and courage of Wollstonecraft at her Enlightenment best, but it’s also a cry from the heart of a woman in pain. You have to read it to believe it.
If you’re a student you can ask your college or university to order Portraits of Wollstonecraft, a mighty tome from the thrilling pen of Wollstonecraft scholar Eileen Hunt.
If you love a historical novel then dive into Samantha Silva’s vivid novel Love and Fury.
You can never go wrong with Lyndall Gordon, her beautiful biography Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft throws new light on the magic and mystery of the Silver ship.
Charlotte Gordon intertwines Wollstonecraft and her more famous daughter, Mary Shelley, in her gorgeous dual biography Romantic Outlaws.
Sylvana Tomaselli's comprehensive study of Wollstonecraft's philosophy, Wollstonecraft: Philosophy, Passion and Politics.
Finally, if you want to explore her legacy while hitting the Scandinavian travel path Wollstonecraft-style (with a kid in tow), try Bee Rowlatt’s In Search of Mary.
If you liked this blog, please share it! We are the Wollstonecraft Society and we share her legacy of human rights, courage, and equality in primary schools all over the country - support our work here.
By Bob Lamm, a writer and college instructor living in New York.
This is the third in a series of guest blogs, running throughout 2022, from friends and fans of Mary Wollstonecraft - all working to keep her legacy alive.
No visit to London can really begin for me until I go to the National Portrait Gallery, near Trafalgar Square, and pay my respects to a lovely painting of Mary Wollstonecraft that I helped “liberate” from the museum’s “dungeons.”
The seeds of my rescue began in the late 1970s, when I visited the gallery but couldn’t find a painting of Wollstonecraft. A few years earlier, my men’s study group on early feminist literature had devoted six months to the life and work of the inspiring English writer of the late 18th century, best known for A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. I subsequently lectured at women’s studies classes about this eloquent crusader who offered challenging political insights and was bold enough to attack in print some of the most famous men of her time, among them Burke, Rousseau, and Talleyrand.
No room at the N(PG)
Because of my great admiration for Wollstonecraft, she was on my mind when I walked through the National Portrait Gallery and then stopped at the gift shop. In a most unlikely place—the “G” section of the postcards—I suddenly recognised a postcard of her labeled “Mary Godwin (nee Wollstonecraft).” In her 30s, Wollstonecraft had married the British philosopher William Godwin but had continued to use and write under her own name. The National Portrait Gallery either hadn’t noticed or didn’t approve.
The postcard indeed featured a portrait of Wollstonecraft, but where was the painting itself? At the information desk, I learned that the portrait (by John Opie, circa 1797) was currently housed in the storage area. The gallery’s walls included few paintings of women—most of whom were best known for some biological or romantic connection to a famous man. At the same time, there was apparently no room for a portrait of England’s feminist pioneer.
The story might have ended there, but the woman at the information desk volunteered that a visitor could request to see any painting not on display. The timing was right, a guard was found, and I was soon down in a storage room standing before Opie’s striking portrait.
John Opie's portrait of Mary Wollstonecraft, estimated to have been painted around 1797, the year of her death
“So let’s move it!”
The painting shows Wollstonecraft in simple clothing: a black beret and a loose white blouse—without any of the lacy feminine frills of that era. She seems intelligent, serene, hardly the dangerous radical so vilified by her enemies. Against a dark background, a single light source brilliantly illuminates Wollstonecraft’s face and blouse, as if the artist saw Wollstonecraft’s burning feminist spirit as a beacon of truth amidst the prejudice and ignorance around her.
During visits to London over the next few years, I retraced those steps to see Opie’s portrait and lamented that others wouldn’t get that opportunity. In early 1984, however, I quite literally encountered an obstacle. A guard said I couldn’t see the painting because there was “something in the way.” The assistant registrar, Andrea Gall, was called in and countered: “So let’s move it!” We did, and as we admired the portrait together, we wondered why it was not on display.
A short-lived thrill
The time had come to protest Wollstonecraft’s imprisonment. I requested a meeting with Jacob Simon, the new curator for the gallery’s 18th century collection. When we spoke in his office, I urged him to find room for the painting and to label it just as she is remembered, Mary Wollstonecraft. He was polite but noncommittal.
Later that year, Mr. Simon sent me a carefully worded letter stating that the Wollstonecraft portrait would soon go on display—but only for four months, to take the place of a painting of Wordsworth on loan to another museum. Thrilling as this news was, I was also saddened because I wouldn’t be in London again during those months and thus would never see the fruits of my protest. Then, shortly thereafter, I learned that the portrait had been cleaned, given an impressive new frame, and was now hanging for all to see . . . under the name of Mary Wollstonecraft.
Vindication for Mary
Now I regretted even more that I’d never see the portrait on the gallery’s walls. But when the Wordsworth painting returned to its home in early 1985, I received stunning news and Jacob Simon became a true hero. Despite his original plan, he never took down the portrait of Wollstonecraft and she has remained on display ever since.
She can be found today in a small room with stained wooden floors, along with portraits of her husband, William Godwin, and their daughter, Mary Shelley. (Wollstonecraft died in 1797 shortly after giving birth to the younger Mary, best known as the author of Frankenstein.) Wollstonecraft and her loved ones look out proudly on an illustrious array of companions: Percy Shelley, Wordsworth, Keats, Byron, Coleridge, Blake, and Austen.
Virginia Woolf wrote of Wollstonecraft: “One form of immortality is hers undoubtedly: she is alive and active, she argues and experiments, we hear her voice and trace her influence even now among the living.”
And, I’m delighted to say, we see her portrait as well.
Originally published in Ms. Magazine, fall 2004. Reprinted in Bob Lamm, An Uncommon Life: A Memoir in 50 (Short) Stories (Amazon, 2021).
The fourth in our occasional series of guest blogs is coming soon. Please get in touch if you have an idea for a piece!
This is the second in a series of guest blogs, running throughout 2022, from friends and fans of Mary Wollstonecraft - all working to keep her legacy alive.
Wollstonecraft Society Trustee Catherine Utley joined the opening night of an exhibition of artwork inspired by Mary Wollstonecraft - the works were submitted as part of a competition run by Newington Green Meeting House with the prize of money for arts materials funded by Wollstonecraft Society.
As Catherine explained when she welcomed people to the exhibition, it was exciting to see the culmination of one of the first initiatives in which the Wollstonecraft Society has been involved.
The photo above shows (L - R) Amy Todd, programme manager at Newington Green Meeting House, Anna Birch from the Mary on the Green campaign, Philip Glanville, Mayor of Hackney, who spoke about the local context to Mary Wollstonecraft’s legacy and Catherine Utley of the Wollstonecraft Society. The group is standing in front of a series of portraits of Mary Wollstonecraft by one of our prize winners.
One of the many impressive art works produced by local schoolchildren as part of the Mary Wollstonecraft project.
Catherine said “what struck me most about the pictures was the range of art work and how different young people had taken Mary’s message and interpreted it to what it meant to them. I highly recommend seeing these works by talented young people!"
It's your last chance to see them this week - you can drop-in between 12-6pm on Thursdays and Fridays until 25th February! More details here.
The third in our occasional series of guest blogs is coming soon. Please get in touch if you have an idea for a piece!
