Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) was born in London, oldest child of the Duke and Duchess of Kingston-upon-Hull. Given access to her family’s huge home library, this clever child taught herself Latin, corresponded with bishops, charmed her social circle, and quickly decided to become a writer. And she was independent enough to reject her father’s choice of husband, eloping instead with a new Whig politician, Edward Wortley Montagu (1678-1761). She threw herself into London society and began writing.
In 1715, this aristocratic young woman was struggling to breathe as her skin sprayed with deep, festering pustules. She was in an inflamed and even violent delirium. Her husband prepare for her death because smallpox, the most deadly disease in the early C18th, had wiped out more people than the Black Plague.
painted by Jean-Baptiste van Mour in c1717
National Portrait Gallery
![]()
Jo Willett's book, published 2021
Portrait by Godfrey Kneller, 1715
Portrait by Godfrey Kneller, 1715
Smallpox, as distinct from the great pox or syphilis, was very infectious and killed one in four of the people who were infected. Survivors were most often marked for life with deep, pitted scars. Mary threw off her infection but her once-flawless skin was scarred, her eyelashes were gone and the skin around her eyes remained forever red and irritated In fact across the centuries, smallpox has killed hundreds of millions and disfigured many more.
After she recovered from smallpox, husband Edward Montagu was made ambassador to the Ottoman empire. Mary insisted on travelling with her husband and bringing their toddler abroad! She turned the long trip into a series of letters home, collected into a volume of fine travel writing. She noted that the Turks had almost no scarring from the pox!
It was during her family’s 15 months in Constantinople that Lady Mary was introduced to a radical medical treatment, and in a 1717 letter home, she explained the process. It had long been recognised that people could only get small-pox once. If they survived, they were immune for life. Rather than take their chances with a natural infection and high fatality rate, older Turkish women induced a slight case in children by ingrafting. Smallpox caused blisters on the skin of patients so the women took the pus from one patient’s blister and scratched it into a cut made on a healthy person’s arm. This would lead to mild symptoms, followed by lifelong protection. Mary saw inoculations.
When her husband had heard that they were being recalled home, Mary made a secret decision. Her son, the first Englishman to undergo smallpox inoculation, never got the disease! And she determined to bring the technique home, but back in London, her enthusiasm for smallpox inoculation was ridiculed by the medical community.
The reasons were:
1. religious (Muslims cannot teach Christians);
2. medical (an untrained aristocrat lecturing physicians?);
3. sexist (a female changing the thinking of men?) or
After she recovered from smallpox, husband Edward Montagu was made ambassador to the Ottoman empire. Mary insisted on travelling with her husband and bringing their toddler abroad! She turned the long trip into a series of letters home, collected into a volume of fine travel writing. She noted that the Turks had almost no scarring from the pox!
It was during her family’s 15 months in Constantinople that Lady Mary was introduced to a radical medical treatment, and in a 1717 letter home, she explained the process. It had long been recognised that people could only get small-pox once. If they survived, they were immune for life. Rather than take their chances with a natural infection and high fatality rate, older Turkish women induced a slight case in children by ingrafting. Smallpox caused blisters on the skin of patients so the women took the pus from one patient’s blister and scratched it into a cut made on a healthy person’s arm. This would lead to mild symptoms, followed by lifelong protection. Mary saw inoculations.
When her husband had heard that they were being recalled home, Mary made a secret decision. Her son, the first Englishman to undergo smallpox inoculation, never got the disease! And she determined to bring the technique home, but back in London, her enthusiasm for smallpox inoculation was ridiculed by the medical community.
The reasons were:
1. religious (Muslims cannot teach Christians);
2. medical (an untrained aristocrat lecturing physicians?);
3. sexist (a female changing the thinking of men?) or
4. economic (physicians profiting from useless treatments).
Mary believed the medical establishment opposed her for economic reasons!
Five years later, in 1721, Lady Mary was again in a lockdown as a smallpox pandemic raged, with her two children for company. She sent out servants daily to gather the names of those who died from the disease. After Lady Mary inoculated her daughter Mary (1718-94), a proper experiment was carried out on 6 prisoners at Newgate gaol, in the presence of the King’s own physician. Prisoners were inoculated and promised their freedom, if they survived. Yet when the process proved safe, newspapers opposed inoculation. And clerics preached against what they saw as Meddling with the Will of God. Of course the entire process soon became politicised, with the Whigs in favour, and the Tories against.
Mary’s daughter recovered easily, thrived and later married the Earl of Bute, a British Prime Minister. Faced with this public proof of medical success, friends wanted to have their own children treated.
![]()
Edward Jenner administering a smallpox vaccine.
Mary believed the medical establishment opposed her for economic reasons!
Five years later, in 1721, Lady Mary was again in a lockdown as a smallpox pandemic raged, with her two children for company. She sent out servants daily to gather the names of those who died from the disease. After Lady Mary inoculated her daughter Mary (1718-94), a proper experiment was carried out on 6 prisoners at Newgate gaol, in the presence of the King’s own physician. Prisoners were inoculated and promised their freedom, if they survived. Yet when the process proved safe, newspapers opposed inoculation. And clerics preached against what they saw as Meddling with the Will of God. Of course the entire process soon became politicised, with the Whigs in favour, and the Tories against.
Mary’s daughter recovered easily, thrived and later married the Earl of Bute, a British Prime Minister. Faced with this public proof of medical success, friends wanted to have their own children treated.
He'd been inoculated as a child by doctors following Lady Mary’s ideas.
Guardian
Guardian
Even Caroline Princess of Wales lobbied her father-in-law George I re inoculating the Royal heirs. He said no grandchildren of his would be endangered until more was known about this strange Eastern cure. The king wanted proper tests! The first test were 6 Newgate prisoners who were inoculated, before keen scientists & physicians. When they all did well, a second test was run on London orphans, Europe’s best clinical trials to test safety and effectiveness. The royal granddaughters were inoculated & the practice spread. Mary won; her work invited others to make advances.
Mary lived into her early 70s, writing, travelling and mixing with intellectual colleagues. Only when her marriage to Edward failed in 1736 did Mary fall in love with a brilliant a 24-year-old Venetian Count, Francesco Algarotti. Algarotti was the lover of her friend Lord John Hervey, so the relationship soon ended. Mary never saw her husband again.
![]()
Jenner’s 1801 book that summarised his cowpox inoculation cases
Des Moines Uni Library
Des Moines Uni Library
Being a woman meant Mary was barred from the Royal Society, England’s famous academy of sciences, further dashing her efforts to gain official support for inoculation. Instead she spread the word among her friends and spent years travelling between aristocratic households over the country, inoculating whoever consented. Decades later, Edward Jenner (1749–1823) showed that cowpox could be substituted for the more dangerous smallpox. (Vacca, Latin for cow, gave the word vaccination). Jenner achieved all the fame; Lady Mary’s efforts, which laid the groundwork for the disease’s eradication in the 1970s, faded.