After the Duke of Devonshire banished Georgiana to the continent for her affair with Charles Grey, the active Duchess was left without her children to tend to, London to party in, or politics to involve herself in. She was left to deal with her grief in foreign lands, but luckily, alongside her mother, sister, and an ever-growing entourage. Oh yeah, Bess was there too.After dealing with the many agonizing emotions of her predicament, Georgiana had to find other things to involve herself in while she was abroad. At first this consisted of the usual English-travelers abroad regime: visit Grand Tour stops, stay with ex-expatriates living abroad, etc, etc. But then Georgiana began actually getting inspired by her visits with expatriates, notably the scientists. Georgiana attempted to better herself with studies of all sorts, but it was chemistry and mineralogy that she became the most interested in. The famous Chemist, Charles Blagden encouraged and motivated Georgiana in her studies. Blagden is given credit for his research in persipitation freezing points in liquid. The two would remain friends for the rest of Georgiana's life.
Instead of political circles and debates it was now scientific circles and lectures. Instead of being a patroness of young actors, as she was in her premiere duchess years, she was now funding scientists. Her return from exile didn't diminish Georgiana's new found interest. She set up a mini lab in Devonshire House to conduct experiments and blessed Chatsworth with one of the finest fossil and mineral collections, which it has to this day. Her new interest also brought her closer to her husband's shy uncle, Henry Cavendish, who discovered Hydrogen. Georgiana couldn't get enough science, and perhaps, if she was born in a different era more open to educated women in this field, she could have made a significant impact on the scientific world.
Did you know that Heddy LaMarr, the Hollywood actress, was one of the inventors of wireless communication? This blog totally reminded me of that, one of my very favorite pieces of trivia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedy_Lamarr
ReplyDeleteWow! I just stumbled across your blog and think it's pretty cool. I never knew this about Georgiana. She really was quite ahead of her time. I would be interested to see what she would have accomplished if she had been born later, but perhaps she would not have been the same woman. Some say circumstances make a person. Do you think this was the case with Georgiana? Or do you think she would have been like this no matter when or where she was born?
ReplyDeleteGeorgiana really does seem to have been a product of her time!
ReplyDeleteOh I think this is totally the case with Georgiana, Jane. But Georgiana was a very enterprising individual, she took was given to her and used it to her advantage to do many things. She was a woman of many talents. She would be unstoppable this day in age!
ReplyDeleteand anonymous...sorry, didn't mean to disregard your totally interesting fact! That is a fantastic piece of trivia and goes to show that more opportunities women are presented with, the more unstoppably fabulous we can be!
ReplyDeleteIt may have sucked to be sold off in marriage to some horrible human being, but at least noble women of this period had such wonderful opportunities to indulge in intellectual pursuits. Just because you couldn't go to a university doesn't mean you couldn't learn as much as you wanted!
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