Hester Lynch Piozzi

Hester Lynch Thrale Piozzi (née Salusbury; 27 January 1741 or 16 January 1740 – 2 May 1821) was a Welsh writer and socialite whose diaries, letters and other works made her an important source of information on Samuel Johnson and 18th-century British life. A member of the prominent Salusbury family of Anglo-Welsh landowners, she first married a wealthy English brewer, Henry Thrale, with whom she had 12 children, and then a musician, Gabriel Mario Piozzi. Her Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786) and her diary Thraliana, published posthumously in 1942, are the main works for which she is remembered. She also wrote a popular history book, a travel book, and a dictionary, and she was an innovator in the art of annotation. She has been seen as a protofeminist.

Early years

Hester Lynch Salusbury was born at Bodvel Hall, Caernarvonshire, Wales, the only daughter of Hester Lynch Cotton and Sir John Salusbury. As a member of the powerful Salusbury family, she belonged to one of the most illustrious Welsh land-owning dynasties of the Georgian era. Through her father's line, she was a direct descendant of Katheryn of Berain.

Hester enjoyed the devoted attention of her uncles and was educated to a high level for a young woman. She would later write that "they had taught me to read and speak and think and translate from the French, till I was half a prodigy."

First marriage

After her father had gone bankrupt in an attempt to invest in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Hester married the rich brewer Henry Thrale on 11 October 1763, at St Anne's Chapel, Soho, London. They had twelve children, of whom only four survived to adulthood, and lived at Streatham Park. However, the marriage was often strained: her husband frequently felt slighted by members of the court and may well have married to improve his social status. The Thrales' eldest daughter, Hester, became a viscountess as the wife of George Elphinstone, 1st Viscount Keith.