Summer 2025: NEH Scholarly Editions Blog

Probable location of Wollstonecraft family home on Hoxton Square, 1774.

The Wollstonecrafts moved back to London in 1774 after their residence in Beverley, Yorkshire, where Wollstonecraft became close friends and correspondents with Jane Arden. It was while she lived at Hoxton Square that Wollstonecraft met her friend and passionate romantic attachment, Frances Blood.   

Hoxton Square still features a lovely set of 18th-century buildings and a beautiful green space that dates to Wollstonecraft's time. The square was known for its large number of Presbyterian ministers and also the doctor who later diagnosed Parkinson's disease. 

Wollstonecraft's residence in Bath, near the market, when she worked as a lady's companion, 1778-1780.

The residence was quite humble compared to Catharine Macaulay's townhouse near the circus and the crescent.

While there is no evidence that their paths crossed, Wollstonecraft and Macaulay would go on to write some of the most important republican defenses of equal female education in the 1780s and early 1790s.

Wollstonecraft also spent significant time at Windsor during her work-stay at Bath.

Catharine Macaulay's townhouse in Bath, near the circus and the crescent,  circa 1778.

The difference in social status is apparent by simply comparing the doorways of Wollstonecraft and Macaulay circa 1778.

The churchyard of St. Andrew's, Enfield, where Wollstonecraft buried her mother on 19 April 1782.

Wollstonecraft left her position in Bath to care for her mother. She moved with her parents  to Enfield in 1781-82, where her father appears in the poor-rate books for the town. This was a stunning reversal of fortune as he had served as Overseer of the Poor in the Church of England parish at Barking when Wollstonecraft was a young girl, about 15 years earlier. 

Elizabeth Dixon (Dickson) Wollstonecraft died on 19 April 1782 and was buried in the St. Andrew's churchyard. It is possible she had an unmarked grave. 

Wollstonecraft was by her side at her death. She was only 22 when she lost her mother, aged 53.