Bridget Bennet 1650-1703

Bridget BENNET, Lady Ossulston 1650-1703

Biographical Note

Wife of John Bennet, politician, 1st Baron Ossulston (1616-95). A book collector and record keeper, Bennet's notebooks detail the family finances and include three library lists dated between 1680 and 1699 that show she had over 200 books. A catalogue dated 1722 shows that by this time the family library totaled almost 700 works.

Books

The catalogue dated 1680 divides Bennet's books into four categories: books in folio; devotional books in quarto; octavo, and duodecimo; non-devotional books in quarto, octavo, and duodecimo; and books in French. It also shows that she loaned her books: Bennet's son, Charles, and Henry Fitzroy, 1st duke of Grafton (1663-1690) both borrowed books from her collection. Her books spanned a wide range of subjects including devotional texts, literature (including the works of authors such as John Dryden, Aphra Behn, Katherine Philips and Richard Blackmore), and medical texts written by Robert Boyle and Nicholas Culpepper. Other subjects include classics, history, and botany.

Sources

• Coolahan, M.-L. and M. Empey, Women’s book ownership and the reception of early modern women’s texts, in L. Knight et al (eds), Women’s bookscapes in early modern Britain, Ann Arbor, 2018, 231-52.
• Empey, Mark. "Bennet [née Howe, Bridget (fl. 1668–1699), book collector."] Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.