ABOUT
SSH
ABOUT
SSH
Sarah Stoddart Hazlitt (1774-1843) was, in many ways, a woman ahead of her time. A relatively little known figure of the British Romantic era, Stoddart’s extraordinary walking tours and the journal in which she recorded them can be of great value for understanding and analyzing nineteenth-century women’s writing, travel, and lifestyle.
Stoddart is most known for her relationships: with her brother, the editor and lawyer Sir John Stoddart, with other literary figures like Mary and Charles Lamb, and primarily with her husband, the essayist William Hazlitt. However, Stoddart was a remarkable character in her own right. Her grandson, William Carew Hazlitt, recalled that she “was capitally read, talked well, and was one of the best letter-writters of her time. She was a true wife to William Hazlitt, and a fond mother to the only child she was able to rear” (Memoirs 12). In a letter written early in their relationship, Stoddart’s close friend Mary Lamb wrote “I will protest you are the most amusing, good-humoured, good sister, and altogether excellent girl I know, or any other fibs you will please to dictate to me,” showing both her earnest nature as well as the lack of feminine delicacy for which she was often criticized (Hitchcock 115).
First hand accounts of Stoddart often focus on her unconventionality and frankness, certainly perceived as uncommon characteristics for women of her time. Before marrying William Hazlitt in 1808 (and possibly after), she had several suitors in England and Malta, where she moved with her brother in order to look for a husband. Willard Hallam Bonner notes that she had as many as seven suitors before Hazlitt, a few of which likely came close to an engagement. Catherine Macdonald Maclean also suggests that Stoddart was involved in “a disagreeable scrape of some kind” toward the end of her stay in Malta, which in part might have explained a quick succession of “matrimonial overtures” the following year and her rushed courtship with Hazlitt (239-40).
Stoddart was a lover of art and literature, and most of her first travels upon reaching Scotland in 1822 are to galleries and the library. Her grandson wrote that “A lady once told me that when she lived at Kentish Town, Mrs. Hazlitt would come to see her, with a sort of satchel round her waist, and beg the loan of a few books to read. I have heard of my grandmother borrowing of others in the same way. She found books a great resource in her rather monotonous life, especially when rheumatism had somewhat affected the use of her fingers in sewing and knitting” (Four Generations 178-9). Carew Hazlitt also recalled that she was known to memorize and recite long quotations from contemporary poets like Wordsworth, Byron, and Scott. Similarly, her writings convey a profound understanding of architecture and art, and she possessed knowledge of technical terminology as well as cultivated opinions on aesthetics.
Stoddart was also very fond of walking—Leslie Stephen observed that the rain would seldom stop her walks, and when friends were visiting she would walk with them as much as twenty miles a day in the Salisbury Plains. Her love of walking is made abundantly clear in the journal she recorded during the aforementioned trip which was later published as Journal of my Trip to Scotland.
Despite her husband’s early career as a portrait artist, no known likeness of Stoddart exists, and little is known of her appearance. Maclean notes that “There was little in her appearance or manner to allure [Hazlitt]” and that “she was not even distinctively feminine in appearance, for she wore her hair cropped” (244). Comparing herself to Hazlitt’s new lover in her journal, Stoddart describes herself as “plump,” and her grandson remembers her having a “florid complexion” which she passed down to her son (247; Four Generations 182).
Truth Finding Fortune in the Sea by Antonio Bellucci. Stoddart and Hazlitt both saw this painting at Dalkeith Palace. Stoddart, ever conscious of her body, compares the principle figure to herself “in the thighs the fall of the back and the contour of the whole figure,” while Hazlitt thinks it resembles Sarah Walker (Journal 247).
About the Journal and Stoddart's Walking Tours
In the Spring and Summer of 1822, Stoddart took a trip to Scotland for the purpose of obtaining a divorce from Hazlitt. The Hazlitts had been separated for some time before 1822, a decision thought to be made by Hazlitt, who had fallen in love with another woman and no longer wished to be with Stoddart. Due to the improbability of obtaining a divorce under strict English law, Hazlitt devised a scheme to get divorced in Scotland, where marriage laws were more lenient. His plan involved Stoddart "accidentally" discovering him with another woman in Edinburgh, where she could then accuse him of adultery and obtain a divorce by swearing the Oath of Calumny. By swearing the Oath, Stoddart would admit that she had not colluded with Hazlitt or engaged in an established plan—she would be committing perjury.
Stoddart recounts her movements in her journal in great detail, paying attention to where she stopped, the routes she took, the landmarks she passed, and when she did so. Her journal was published in its entirety first by Richard Le Gallienne in 1894 as Journal of My Trip to Scotland (also called Mrs. Hazlitt's Diary), but as an appendix to her husband's Liber Amoris. In 1959 Willard Hallam Bonner released an edited version of the text as The Journals of Sarah and William Hazlitt, 1822-1831, which also included Hazlitt's contemporary journals.
Legacy
Though her journal has been in circulation for over 100 years, little scholarly attention has been given to it. As Sonia Hofkosh notes in Sexual Politics and the Romantic Author, Stoddart's text "has been, like the woman herself, dismissed as of only limited interest or importance for our reading of romanticism and its discontents" (115). Stoddart has not only been dismissed, but also misrepresented and even ridiculed by many of Hazlitt's earlier biographers, likely due to Hazlitt's own mistreatment of her, as is recorded in the Journal and elsewhere. Hazlitt often depicted Stoddart as cold, cheap, and selfish, sharing these views with friends despite the aspects of her character that suggest quite the opposite (for a more thorough examination of Stoddart's reputation amongst Hazlitt and his biographers, see Bonner's meticulous introduction to the Journal).
In recent years, with the digitization of the two published versions of the Journal, scholarly discussion on Stoddart has started to increase, with the Journal being perceived as a proper literary text for perhaps the first time since its composition. Scholars such as Gillian Beattie-Smith, Betty Hagglund, and Hofkosh have written not only on the literary merit of the Journal but also Stoddart's significance as a figure in the Romantic era. It is the goal of this project not only to increase important scholarly work such as this, but also to celebrate Stoddart's character and literary contribution to our understanding of Romanticism, women's writing, and travel during the nineteenth-century.
Timeline
Due to a deficiency of first-hand sources, this timeline has been approximated. Though few of her own letters have been transcribed, important dates can be found in letters to Stoddart from people like the Lambs and Hazlitt (none of whom were the most regular correspondents), which have been sourced from texts in the “Related Biographies” section of the bibliography.
-
C. 1774: Sarah Stoddart was born to Lieutenant John Stoddart and Sarah Stoddart in Wiltshire, England
-
C. 1802: Stoddart meets Charles (a longtime friend of her brother’s) and Mary Lamb, who remain close friends for the rest of her life
-
Late 1803-1805: Stoddart travels to Malta with her brother Sir John Stoddart (Advocate of the Crown and of the Admiralty for Malta) and his wife Isabella Wellwood-Moncrieff
-
C. 1803-1804: Stoddart courts with multiple suitors, and possibly has a ruinous affair with one man toward the end of her stay
-
Spring 1805: Lieutenant John Stoddart dies, Stoddart inherits property in Winterslow and is sent back to England to be with her mother
-
1805: Unable to care for her mentally-ill and newly widowed mother on her own, Stoddart places her in a Salisbury madhouse
-
-
1806: Courtships with a Mr. White, a Mr. Turner, and a farmer named Mr. Dowling
-
1806: Mary Lamb tells Stoddart about William Hazlitt for the first time in a letter
-
C. 1807: Courtship with Hazlitt
-
C. December 1807: Stoddart and Hazlitt officially become engaged without telling her brother
-
May 1808: Stoddart marries Hazlitt by special license at St. Andrew's Church in Holborn and they move to her property in Winterslow (some account suggest this occurred on May 1st, others on May 12th)
-
January 15th, 1809: The Hazlitts’ first son, William, is born
-
July 5th, 1809: William dies from an unknown illness
-
October, 1809: The Lambs and Ned Phillips visit Winterslow and often take daily walks of eight to twenty miles through the Salisbury Plains
-
April 14th, 1822: Stoddart departs London for Edinburgh
-
May 13th-20th, 1822: Stoddart goes on her first walking tour in Scotland, walking 170 miles through parts of the highlands
-
May 31st-June 5th, 1822: Stoddart walks 112 miles on her second walking tour through Perthshire and parts of the highlands
-
June 14th, 1822: Stoddart swears the Oath of Calumny
-
June 18th-28th, 1822: Stoddart leaves Scotland for the only time during her divorce proceedings and travels to Ireland
-
July 17th, 1822: The Hazlitts’ divorce is finalized. Stoddart leaves Scotland the following day
-
-
Summer 1824: Stoddart travels in France
-
September 18th, 1830: Hazlitt dies in London. Stoddart writes his death notice for The Times and possibly the inscription on Hazlitt’s tombstone
-
1840: By this time Stoddart has been afflicted with rheumatism and has nearly lost the use of her hands
-
1843: Stoddart dies at her lodgings in Pimlico
-
1867: Parts of the Journal are published for the first time in Memoirs of William Hazlitt: With Portions of His Correspondence, Volume 2, written by the Hazlitts’ grandson, William Carew Hazlitt
-
1894: The Journal is published in full for the first time within Richard Le Gallienne’s edition of Hazlitt’s Liber Amoris
-
1959: Willard Hallam Bonner publishes an edited version of the Journal as The Journals of Sarah and William Hazlitt, 1822-1831
-
2022: The 200th anniversary of Stoddart’s walking tours. It has been over 60 years since a new edition of the Journal has been published
In the years after her trip to Scotland, Stoddart traveled around France and England. She and Hazlitt remained friends after their divorce and she never remarried, keeping the surname Hazlitt. Along with being her only published work, the Journal is the most extensive account of Stoddart’s life, and comparatively little is known about the period between 1822 and her death in 1843. Her grave has not been located.
Facsimile signature from a letter to Stoddart's son dated July 26th, 1824, printed in the Le Gallienne edition of Liber Amoris
-
Early March 1810: Stoddart miscarries her second son. Once she is physically recovered, she spends a month with the Lambs in London
-
September 26th, 1811: Stoddart gives birth to her third son, the only to survive infancy, also William
-
1812: The Hazlitts move to 19 York Street in Westminster, a home once lived in by John Milton and rented to them by Jeremy Bentham
-
C. 1815: Another son, John, is born to the Hazlitts but does not survive more than a few months
-
Late 1819: The Hazlitts separate. Stoddart and her son return to Winterslow
-
C. 1819-20: Hazlitt meets and becomes infatuated with Sarah Walker, and a divorce scheme is hatched
The Hazlitt’s house at 19 York Street
In the midst of the legal turmoil of her divorce, Stoddart spends her time mostly in walking. She begins by walking throughout Edinburgh, but her most impressive feats were two unaccompanied journeys across Scotland where she walked 170 miles in seven days and 112 miles in five days respectively. The miles she walked around Edinburgh and during another trip to Ireland are countless.
Stoddart's Edinburgh residence