Shepherd vol 1 ebook chapter 1 Who Was Lady Mary Shepherd?

Chapter 1: Who Was Lady Mary Shepherd?

Lady Mary Shepherd (nee Mary Primrose, 1777-1847) was born at Barnbougle Castle into a Scottish aristocratic family during the Georgian era under George III, and died a decade after Queen Victoria ascended the throne. She was highly influential within both the Edinburgh and London intellectual circles as well as having contacts in Cambridge, Oxford and Norfolk[i]. She commented on famous philosophers’ works, such as Locke, Reid, Berkeley, and Hume and socialised with fellow philosophers including Dugald Stewart, James Mill and Charles Babbage[ii]. Shepherd hosted her own salon and her marital home became a magnet for a variety of intellectuals[iii].  

Through her family and marriage Shepherd enjoyed a wide range of contacts and friendships including many from The Cambridge Philosophy Society and the Astronomical Society[iv]. As was the norm for salons in this era, she mixed with a wide range of people from different backgrounds and class who held various political beliefs and outlooks. The people believed to have attended her salon ranged from philosophical and political radical thinkers to Whigs[v]. The intellectuals were also from various professions such as literary figures, politicians, economists, mathematicians, publishers and scientists. Among the likely guests, apart from philosophers, were literary greats such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth^[vi] and the female mathematician and science writer Mary Somerville. Shepherd also had an inner circle of friends[vii] which included the controversial, fascinating, liberal-minded theologian, Archbishop Whately, the political economist David Ricardo, who she viewed as a close friend, James Mill, a philosopher, and the inventor Charles Babbage[viii]. Shepherd was a Christian and, as I discuss in chapter 12, a theist philosopher (not theologian) but, nevertheless, felt everyone should be able to follow her philosophical thoughts in her treatises, regardless of faith. Her main interests comprised of mathematics, science and abstract thought involving logic and reasoning skills[ix].

It was an important feature and social principle of salons during this period both in the UK and abroad that gatherings were egalitarian and not elitist[x]. People from different classes and social backgrounds mixed together and gender roles were less demarcated and Shepherd’s salon was no exception to this[xi]. It was customary to serve the food before the guests were seated and then they would informally serve themselves rather than waiting to be served[xii]. Men and women sat together and socialised with each other throughout the evening[xiii]. It was commonplace to decorate the table with flowers, arranged side dishes of vegetables such as olives and to set the table much as today with beautifully arranged napkins and wineglasses^[xiv]. It was very common for the host of a salon to be a woman and the hostess would often run it and set the rules, tone, manners which would govern the salon’s social gatherings for both sexes[xv]. The hostess was often regarded as highly influential and many tried to stay on the right side of her[xvi]. It was a highly skilled role which required a combination of a great intellect with quick thinking, a sense of humour and complex social skills. Shepherd was incredibly good at this^[xvii]: 

“Lady Mary Shepherd was remembered, through her brother and her nephew, as a hostess of unusually sharp wit and logical ability:

I should like to hear more about the gifted Lady Mary Shepherd — and her ‘Salon,’ which my mother has often assured me was a very interesting and agreeable one. My father seems to have been often there, and Lady Mary’s humour seems to have been as well-known as her logical powers, and occasional causticity [Brandreth, 1888, p. 4].”

An important feature of salons was that everyone felt free to express and debate their views, to disagree with each other and to mix with people from opposing views e.g. radicals and Whigs. Nevertheless, the tone of the conversation remained respectful and non-confrontational whilst retaining a quick-witted and candid approach[xviii].

So-called radical ideas were considered par for the course, without them there wouldn’t be any progress. Salons developed into an effective social space for preventing political extremism and were a hotbed for thinkers who freely exchanged controversial, radical ideas, ranging from inventions to ideas for positive social change.  Science was very popular as a topic of conversation and that means it is possible that Shepherd may have learnt about unusual, controversial scientific ideas such as the consciousness of a foetus, something we are still grappling with today. I think this is plausible if Babbage was already delving into computer science, well ahead of his time.

Salons were a great way for women to receive an education since they were denied entry to universities[xix]. The egalitarian atmosphere gave them access to a broad range of knowledge and the skills to hold academic, intellectual debates and discourse which would help them to participate in public life[xx]. De Scudéry, who was passionate about women’s education, especially in politics and philosophy, thought that:

“if women could attend salons and be respected as valuable contributors to salon life then they could very well take on positions in public life”[xxi]

I think this quote is still as relevant as ever: women need to not only be allowed to freely attend intellectual events but also partake in discussion and debates, be it asking questions at question time, contributing to discussions at dinners, social gatherings, and that their ideas and thoughts are welcome and considered seriously as valuable in themselves in furthering knowledge by granting them equal status as contributors in society. It is still just as important because “every individual needs to feel that he or she is connected to a living community in which he or she is permitted to enjoy relationships and ideas for their own sake.”[xxii] This also may give them confidence to be more involved in public life in general. A modern day example of this is how the Women’s Equality Party is working hard to recruit women to stand but unless women are given chances to be seen and heard as equals throughout their lives they won’t have the impetus to think they can because they find it difficult to see themselves in a political role.

So salons developed into an effective social space for thinkers d were a hotbed for thinkers whois post. to freely exchange and develop their creative sometimes controversial ideas, ranging from ideas for positive social change from people such as James Mill to inventions from, for instance, Babbage whose ideas were so ahead of his time that he invented and constructed a machine which was the precursor to the computer. Together with a group of undergraduates, Babbage founded the Analytical Society at Cambridge in 1811[xxiii]. He was a strong supporter of science being accessible to all and enriching society so played an active part in starting the Astronomical Society in 1820 and, eleven years later in 1831, he assisted with the creation of the British Association for the Advancement of Science[xxiv]. Babbage also saw himself as a philosopher and wrote on religion and miracles, expressing very similar views on miracles to Shepherd[xxv]. So, I suggest that Shepherd was in good company in her era to develop and debate her style of analytical philosophy. I think that the combination of her interests and those around her may have contributed to her possibly becoming not only the first Scottish female philosopher but also the first contemporary-style analytical philosopher. By this I mean that, although philosophers prior to her era have some analytic features in their work, the methodology Shepherd uses when philosophising is, I find, remarkably similar in style and approach to contemporary approaches to analytical-style philosophy. I shall discuss this further in chapter 2.  

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[i] Jennifer McRobert, ‘Mary Shepherd and the Causal Relation’ February 2002, 48, https://philpapers.org/archive/MCRMSA.pdf.

[ii] McRobert, 50.

[iii] McRobert, 48.

[iv] McRobert, 50.

[v] McRobert, 50.

[vi] McRobert, 49–53.

[vii] McRobert, 52.

[viii] McRobert, p48.

[ix] McRobert, 49.

[x] Benet Davetian, ‘The  History and Meaning of Salons’, educational, Sociology Web, n.d., http://www.bdavetian.com/salonhistory.html.

[xi] McRobert, ‘Mary Shepherd and the Causal Relation’, p52.

[xii] Geerte de Jong, ‘American, Old English or a La Russe: Dinner Styles in the 19th Century’, Wordpress, The Victorian Era (blog), 26 December 2012, https://19thct.com/2012/12/26/american-old-english-or-a-la-russe-dinner-styles-in-the-19th-century/.

[xiii] de Jong.

[xiv] de Jong. Information and citations for this post on the blog ‘The Victorian Era’  are from “A la Russe, à la Pell-Mell, or à la Practical: Ideology and Compromise at the Late Nineteenth-Century Dinner Table” by Michael T. Lucas, which appeared in Historical Archaeology, Vol. 28, No. 4, 1994.  

[xv] Davetian, ‘The  History and Meaning of Salons’.

[xvi] Davetian.

[xvii] McRobert, ‘Mary Shepherd and the Causal Relation’, 48–49.

                                                                                                                                                        

[xviii] Davetian, ‘The  History and Meaning of Salons’.

[xix] Davetian, ‘The  History and Meaning of Salons’.

[xx] Davetian.

[xxi] Davetian.

[xxii] Davetian.

[xxiii] Anon., ‘Charles Babbage 1791-1871’, educational, Science Museum (Collection), n.d., http://collection.sciencemuseum.org.uk/people/cp36993/charles-babbage.

[xxiv] Anon.,.

[xxv] Charles Babbage, Passages from the Life of a Philosopher (London, United Kingdom: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts & Green., 1864), https://archive.org/stream/passagesfromlife03char#page/n7/mode/2up.