20 Facts About Margaret King

Margaret King, known as Margaret King Moore, Lady Mount Cashell and Mrs Mason, was an Anglo-Irish hostess, and a writer of female-emancipatory fiction and health advice.

Margaret King was born into the Anglo-Irish Kingsborough family, leading members of the Protestant Ascendancy, the Anglican landed elite in Ireland who cooperated with the British Crown in governing the Kingdom.

Margaret King nonetheless claimed that Wollstonecraft's influence was profound, that she "had freed her mind from all superstitions".

The motherly governess in the framing story is called Mrs Mason, a name Margaret King adopted in later life.

Margaret King had taught her to think for herself and to question respect and obedience commanded only on the basis of rank.

Margaret King founded a farming community on Amherst Island in Upper Canada, and was judged "an improving and evangelical landlord".

Margaret King attended the treason trials of John Horne Tooke, John Thewall, and Thomas Hardy in London in 1794, and in Dublin joined another of Lady Moira's bluestocking circle, the poet and satirist Henrietta Battier, in heeding the appeal in The Press for women to "act for the amelioration of your country in the mighty crisis that awaits her": she took the United Irish test.

Margaret King had visited and grown friendly with them when she was in London in 1807.

Margaret King was as tall as a man, and cultivated a surly and taciturn persona, to keep away curious acquaintanceships.

Margaret King continued her studies in Italy, with professor of surgery, Andrea Vacca Berlinghieri of the University of Pisa.

Margaret King is known to have conducted a dispensary for the poor in Pisa, akin to the Bloomsbury Dispensary for the Relief of the Sick Poor in London.

Margaret King issued a stern injunction against ever "wounding a daughter's sensibility, or mortifying her pride".

Margaret King maintained her interest in literature, publishing a two-volume novel The Sisters of Nansfield: A Tale for Young Women.

George and Margaret moved to Tuscany, where they called themselves "Mr and Mrs Mason", taking the name of the maternal governess in Wollstonecraft's early novel.

Margaret King developed a reputation as a "no nonsense grande dame", and the couple set up home at Casa Silva, Pisa, with their daughters Lauretta and Nerina.

Margaret King felt maternal towards the women, as they were both in a sense daughters of her life-changing motherly governess.

Margaret King offered "sage advice" to Shelley about his health and to Clairmont about her career.

Margaret King introduced them all to a new intellectual and social circle in Pisa, and helped Mary set up her household, finding them pleasant lodgings and advising on servants.

Widowed in October 1822, Margaret King married Tighe in March 1826.

Margaret King was described, in the 1920 introduction to Wilmot's diaries, as "socially charming and attractive, highly cultivated, upright and refined", but "harsh to her children, a Freethinker in religion, and imbued with what were then the most extravagant political notions".