What’s new: June 2023

June 7, 2023

This month’s update comprises ten new articles on women active in public life from the end of the fourteenth to the late twentieth century: Joan Beauchamp (Lady Bergavenny), Joan Cooke, Hortense Mancini (duchess of Mazarin), Jane Baldwin, Sarah Curran, Lucy Cavendish, Marjorie Powell, Madeleine Symons, Dorothy Elliott, Margaret Campbell (duchess of Argyll).  Read the introduction here.

Baldwin [née Maltass], Jane (1763–1839), society beauty

Beauchamp, Joan, Lady Bergavenny (1375–1435), landowner

Campbell [née Whigham; other married name Sweeny], (Ethel) Margaret, duchess of Argyll (1912–1993), socialite

Cavendish [née Lyttleton], Lucy Caroline [known as Lady Frederick Cavendish] (1841–1925), promoter of women’s education, voluntary worker, and diarist

Cooke [née Massinger], Joan (d. 1545/6), benefactor and vowess

Curran [married name Sturgeon], Sarah (1782–1808), fiancée of Irish revolutionary Robert Emmet and subject of romantic legend

Elliott [married name Jones], Dorothy Mary (1896–1980), feminist and trade union activist

Mancini, Hortense (Ortensia), duchess of Mazarin (1646–1699), literary hostess, memoirist, and royal mistress

Powell [married name Robinson], Marjorie Eve (1893–1939), economist and university teacher

Symons [married name Robinson], Madeleine Jane (1895–1957), trade unionist and penal reformer

The Oxford DNB is updated regularly throughout the year, giving you access to the most up-to-date and accurate information available. Nearly all public libraries in England, Scotland, and Wales—and all in Northern Ireland—subscribe to the Oxford DNB. This means you can access tens of thousands of biographies, free, via your local library—anywhere, anytime. Full access to all biographies is also available by individual subscription.

Discover a full list of entries added this year.