Lady Eleanor Butler

-
Standard Name: Butler, Lady Eleanor
Birth Name: Eleanor Butler
Styled: Lady Eleanor Butler
One of the two renowned Ladies of Llangollen, LEB produced life-writing (diaries, letters, and some poems) during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, which structured, recorded, and celebrated their shared way of life. Today the writing of her partner, Sarah Ponsonby , is also receiving attention.

Connections

Connections Sort descending Author name Excerpt
Cultural formation Hester Lynch Piozzi
HLP 's first marriage made heterosexuality a burden to her, with constant pregnancy, bearing children who died early and painfully, and tending to her husband's venereal diseases. She recorded what would later be called homophobic...
Dedications J. S. Anna Liddiard
JSAL published at DublinKenilworth and Farley Castle: with other Poems, dedicated to two famous Irishwomen, Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen.
Liddiard, J. S. Anna. Kenilworth and Farley Castle: with Other Poems. Hibernia–Press Office.
prelims
Family and Intimate relationships Elizabeth Ogilvy Benger
Among EOB 's literary friends, Elizabeth Hamilton was special. When Benger mentions Hamilton's delight in fostering unprotected talent, especially female talent, she is probably thinking of her own. She prints letters which are almost certainly...
Family and Intimate relationships Anne Lister
The Leeds Mercury then published a spoof marriage announcement between Ann Walker and Captain Tom Lister of Shibden Hall.AL thought this merely funny (unlike Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of...
Family and Intimate relationships Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Elizabeth Mavor , biographer of Butler and Ponsonby , classes as romantic attachments HMB 's friendships with both of them, with Smith , and with Margaret Davies . Bowdler was, says Mavor, inclined to adopt...
Family and Intimate relationships Frances Power Cobbe
Lloyd was the daughter of the squire of Rhagatt in Merionethshire, Wales; a maiden aunt in the family had been a friend of the Ladies of Llangollen (Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby )...
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Hamilton
While in Wales they visited Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (the ladies of Llangollen) and in the Lakes they stayed with Elizabeth Smith and her family.
Benger, Elizabeth Ogilvy. Memoirs of the late Mrs. Elizabeth Hamilton. Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown.
1: 152-4
Smith, Elizabeth. Fragments, In Prose and Verse. Editor Bowdler, Henrietta Maria, Richard Cruttwell.
151
In Edinburgh in 1803...
Friends, Associates Anna Seward
AS became a close friend of Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen, whom she called the Rosalind and Celia of real life.
Wordsworth, Jonathan. The Bright Work Grows: Women Writers of the Romantic Age. Woodstock Books.
96-7
For years they regularly exchanged gifts...
Friends, Associates Mary Matilda Betham
As well as meeting at Llangollen with Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (who later talked with high praise of her),
Betham, Ernest, editor. A House of Letters. Jarrold and Sons.
69, 70
MMB acquired a wide acquaintance in London. She became a close friend...
Friends, Associates J. S. Anna Liddiard
She wrote that Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen, treated her with very kind and flattering attention when she visited them.
Liddiard, J. S. Anna. Kenilworth and Farley Castle: with Other Poems. Hibernia–Press Office.
prelims
She may perhaps have known Anna Seward
Friends, Associates Elizabeth Smith
ES and her mother visited the Ladies of Llangollen (Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby ) en route to Ireland, and Elizabeth wrote a long letter to Bowdler on this subject, which unfortunately does...
Friends, Associates Mary Tighe
MT visited Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby , the Ladies of Llangollen, and met Anna Seward at their house.
Mavor, Elizabeth. The Ladies of Llangollen. Michael Joseph.
126
Friends, Associates Mary Tighe
Before she left London, MT met there her fellow Irish poet Tom Moore . He subsequently visited her in Dublin and complimented her in verse. She exchanged poems with Barbarina Wilmot (later Lady Dacre) ...
Friends, Associates Henrietta Maria Bowdler
Frances Burney preferred HMB , as more kind and gentle, to her sister Frances Bowdler. Burney amusingly records a visit by herself, HMB and others, to Lady Miller of Batheaston on 8 June 1780, when...
Friends, Associates Melesina Trench
In England and (especially) Ireland her friends (with whom she kept up largely by correspondence) included a number of other amateur writers: Mary Leadbeater (from 1802), Lady Eleanor Butler and Sarah Ponsonby (the Ladies of...

Timeline

1782: George Romney painted a picture to illustrate...

Women writers item

1782

George Romney painted a picture to illustrate (after the fact) William Hayley 'a Triumphs of Temper, 1781: Serena, reading Burney 's Evelina. The model was Honora Sneyd .

1 April 1789: Hester Lynch Piozzi (a propos reports about...

Building item

1 April 1789

Hester Lynch Piozzi (a propos reports about Marie Antoinette ) indignantly recorded what she presents as if it was her first encounter with lesbianism.

March 1908: Mary Louisa Gordon, who had qualified as...

Building item

March 1908

Mary Louisa Gordon , who had qualified as both a physician and a midwife and had practised medicine in London since 1900, was appointed the first female prison inspector in Britain.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

Texts

Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. “Foreword and Editorial Materials”. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton, edited by Eva Mary Bell, Macmillan, 1930, p. vii - viii; various pages.
Butler, Lady Eleanor, and Sarah Ponsonby. Life with the Ladies of Llangollen. Editor Mavor, Elizabeth, Viking, 1984.
Butler, Lady Eleanor et al. The Hamwood Papers of the Ladies of Llangollen and Caroline Hamilton. Editor Bell, Eva Mary, Macmillan, 1930.