Bridget Bennet born Bridget Howe was an English book collector. She lived at two houses and her husband was a member of Parliament who became Baron Ossulston. Her notes and the changing lists of her books give an insight into her interests, book-lending and self-education.

Life

Bennet's birthplace and date are unknown, but she was the daughter of John Grobham Howe (1625–1679) and Lady Annabella Scroope (d. 1704). Her father came from Langar in Nottinghamshire and her mother was the illegitimate daughter of Emmanuel, first earl of Sunderland. In 1668, she was in Paris and in 1673 she married. Her husband Sir John Bennet was a Knight of the Bath^[1] he was a Lieutenant of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen at Arms.^[2]

Dawley House

Her new husband had been a member of Parliament for a decade and he had houses in Golden Square in Westminster and Dawley in Harlington, Middlesex.^[3] Her husband became Lord Ossulston, Baron Ossulston on 24 November 1682.^[1]

Her records show that, on 4 May 1699, she had over 200 books, three of which were non-English. By then she had been widowed for four years. The first known catalogue of her library of books was dated 1680 but it appears to have been kept up to date until 1689. That catalogue was of over 220 books but there was a large variation in the two lists. The 1680 list included 35 books in French, including leading women authors Hortense Mancini, Marie-Catherine de Villedieu and Madame de La Fayette. The differences in the collections may be due to Bennet sharing her books. She lent books to others, including her nephew Henry FitzRoy, 1st Duke of Grafton (the King's son), "Mrs Reverwest" and over a dozen books to her son Charles.^[3]

The lists show her changing interests, particularly towards medicine at the time that her daughter died, and also to the education of women. She owned modern writings including dialogue concerning women, being a defence of the sex written to Eugenia by William Walsh in 1691, Nahum Tate's A Present for the Ladies: being an Historical Vindication of the Female Sex from the following year and John Dunton's book The Challenge sent by a young lady to Sir Thomas &c., or, The Female War which was published in 1697. These three are all supportive of women at the time and she obtained them soon after publication.^[3]

It is unclear when she died, but in 1722 the catalogue of over 700 books was probably complied after her death, and it was after the death of her son Charles. The books were valued at £115 and one third of these titles were present in her earlier catalogues. However nearly half of the books that she owned in 1680 did not survive into the 1722 list.^[3]

References