Catharine Macaulay, An Eighteenth-Century Clio

Abstract

N THE vestibule of eighteenth-century Blackwell Parlor at The Henry Francis du Pont Winterthur Museum stands a charming biscuit statuette of Catharine Macaulay Graham, England's first woman historian. Although little known today, she was a woman of such distinction that in her time she was universally referred to as the celebrated Mrs. Macaulay. This ChelseaDerby figure (Figs. i and 2), manufactured about 1775 in pottery works of William Duesbury, is one of many forms of art that reflect esteem accorded Mrs. Macaulay in that era. The name and face of Kate Macaulay were familiar to almost every well-read man and woman of late eighteenth century. With publication of her History of England . . . , she displayed her radicalism both by her republican writings and by her entrance into masculine world of national and