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A Georgian Heroine: The Intriguing Life of Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs

Joanne Major (Goodreads Author),

Sarah Murden (Goodreads Author)

3.81 · Rating details · 16 ratings · 8 reviews

Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs lived an incredible life, one which proved that fact is often much stranger than fiction. As a young woman she endured a tortured existence at the hands of a male tormentor, but emerged from that to reinvent herself as a playwright and author; a political pamphleteer and a spy, working for the British Government and later singlehandedly orga ...more

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Hardcover, 224 pages

Published November 30th 2017 by Pen & Sword Books

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Dec 20, 2017 Regan Walker rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 18th-century, non-fiction

A fascinating Look at one woman’s heroic accomplishments in the Georgian Era

Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs was an amazing woman, particularly for her time and this is her story as told by two authorities in the Georgian Era. As the authors say,

Charlotte tantalizes with a glimpse of the passionate and brave
woman that lay beneath her carefully cultivated, respectable, almost
nondescript demeanor before she once again draws down the veil
and shields that side of her character from view.

The story be A fascinating Look at one woman’s heroic accomplishments in the Georgian Era

Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs was an amazing woman, particularly for her time and this is her story as told by two authorities in the Georgian Era. As the authors say,

Charlotte tantalizes with a glimpse of the passionate and brave
woman that lay beneath her carefully cultivated, respectable, almost
nondescript demeanor before she once again draws down the veil
and shields that side of her character from view.

The story begins in the 1770s in Lambeth on the Thames where the Williams family had relocated from Wales. Charlotte was educated in France. Much of what we know about her is taken from a letter she wrote to the man she had once hoped to wed, General Sir David Ochterlony, a Scot born in Boston who made his name in India as a part of the East India Company’s army. Alas, he quite forgot about Charlotte until she struck up a correspondence with him later in life.

As a young woman, still a teenager, the beautiful Charlotte Williams was abducted, repeatedly raped and held prisoner by a despicable man who was obsessed with her. A man who escaped any punishment, at least in this life. It took Charlotte years to be free of him, but she persisted. Charming, inventive and intelligent, she made friends in high places and dared much to bring her ideas to light. She became a playwright and author, a political pamphleteer, even a spy, working for the British government. At one point, deciding the royal family needed a boost, she single-handedly organized George III’s jubilee celebration.

The record suggests she never married but took the name of a friend who was happy to have the cover of a pretend marriage for the sake of his gay lifestyle.

Trapped in France during the Revolution (1792-95), Charlotte published an anonymous account of her adventures. She was content to give her thoughts to others, allowing politicians to use her ideas and analyses. But as her success became evident and her thoughts ever more valued, she never forgot her true love, a man who abandoned her to pursue his own ambitions, spending his adult life in India, taking Muslim wives and “going native”.

Charlotte was an overcomer and a trailblazer who overcame a bad beginning (bad through no fault of her own) to take risks and cleverly ascertain where society was going. A royalist all through the Revolution, she never doubted that in the end the Bourbons would be restored to the French throne, which they were.

We authors try and cast our heroines as noble women who overcome great odds to lead significant lives and win the hero’s love. Though she never found true love, Charlotte was just such a woman. I could not recommend a more delightful heroine to you than Charlotte. The authors have done a thoroughly researched job of bringing her story to light in a fast-paced narrative. I recommend it! ...more

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Mar 31, 2019 Kristin rated it liked it

Shelves: finished-copies

I would like to thank Pen and Sword for a free copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Following the intriguing life of Rachel Charlotte Williams Briggs, this biography the story of a women involved with revolution and government. It was really interesting to find out about Charlotte, whom I had never heard of before. However, it could have spent more time on Charlotte herself, there is lots of information on her family and friends.

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Dec 14, 2017 Jacqui Reiter rated it really liked it

Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs, or simply Charlotte Biggs, as she is known for most of the book, is something of an enigma. She was clearly a woman who did not fit at all into the 18th century mould. Of middle-class origins, she overcame the early destruction of her reputation to become a self-made woman with the ear of some of the most famous politicians of the era.

It makes for a fascinating story, and the tale of Mrs Biggs – if, indeed, she was ever truly 'Mrs Biggs', but that's a story for t ...more

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Mar 11, 2018 Naomi Clifford rated it it was amazing

Shelves: historical-non-fiction

For their third book, Joanne Major and Sarah Murden, who specialise in bringing out obscure personalities from the hidden folds of history, have chosen Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs (1760s–1827), who was born in respectable ‘middling’ circumstances, suffered severe trauma in a series of shockingly brutal events, and went on to build a new life as a political commentator, propagandist and playwright and more.

As the authors point out, few would have guessed on meeting the middle-aged Charlotte ( For their third book, Joanne Major and Sarah Murden, who specialise in bringing out obscure personalities from the hidden folds of history, have chosen Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs (1760s–1827), who was born in respectable ‘middling’ circumstances, suffered severe trauma in a series of shockingly brutal events, and went on to build a new life as a political commentator, propagandist and playwright and more.

As the authors point out, few would have guessed on meeting the middle-aged Charlotte (her preferred moniker), who was attractive and somewhat serious, that she hid such a traumatic past. As a teenager she had been targeted by a psychologically disturbed neighbour, Richard Heaviside, who with the aid of accomplices kidnapped, imprisoned and brutally raped her. The baby that resulted was removed from her and died. Charlotte managed to escape from Heaviside with the help of friends but, after a few months respite hiding in Wales, he came for her again, and was returned to his control. Now, however, he proposed marriage. The similarities to the plot of Samuel Richardson’s Clarissa are unavoidable.

It is little wonder that when Charlotte was finally released from Heaviside’s clutches, having refused marriage, she looked to France, where she had been educated as a young girl, for refuge. Here allied herself to Benjamin Hunt Biggs, one of the many peripheral characters in the tale, with whom she appears to have made some kind of marriage arrangement (no proof of actual marriage has been found), possibly of the lavender kind. However, ironically, they ended up imprisoned at the behest of the Revolutionary government of France. Charlotte’s life at this point seems to have been a sequence of confinements.

What is amazing is that on her return to England Charlotte chose not to sink into obscurity but instead sought to give voice to her thoughts and ideas. She published her experiences in France and wrote What Is She?, a comedy of errors which was performed for six nights at the Theatre Royal the stage.

Charlotte’s reinvention of herself did not stop there. She was determined to propose a solution to starvation amongst the poor, who were threatened by the rising price of bread, and published it as a pamphlet, A Maximum; or, the Rise and Progress of Famine, addressed to the British People. She managed to get William Wilberforce to mention it in the House, although he credited it to ‘a gentleman’.

It is a telling moment. All women lived in a man’s world. They could be politically engaged but had no agency. They had no property rights, reduced legal rights and minimal human rights. Rape laws were stacked against them. Heaviside built a career in the law and made a respectable marriage. He was not ‘ruined’ by his appalling behaviour. No wonder Charlotte seems never to have regularised her relationship with Mr Biggs. In her will she was described as neither wife, nor widow, nor spinster, indicating perhaps that she refused to be defined by her marriage status.

Charlotte kept herself busy, and among other projects proposed and organised the nationwide celebration of George III’s jubilee, with festivities held in villages and towns across the country, which she insisted should include collections for the relief of the poor.

Charlotte’s literary works are largely now forgotten but it is her extraordinary and dramatic story that intrigues. It is not for nothing that Major and Murden have used this word in the subtitle, for there remain a number of unanswered, and unanswerable, questions. While endorsing the essential truth of Charlotte’s account of her French imprisonment, they are sceptical about various details, and indeed prove some of it to have been impossible. Charlotte’s description of her double abduction is similarly forensically examined. It is possible that she glossed parts of it. Georgian understanding of rape was simplistic. Rape involved an unexpected attack, screaming and violent resistance. It was a fate worse than death, and indeed the reputation of a dead rape victim was easier to defend than a live one. Ideas of grooming or Stockholm Syndrome were unknown.

Previous subjects covered by Major and Murden, a well-known blogging duo (their website All Things Georgian is hugely popular for the breadth of subject and the deft way they tackle complex topics), were Grace Dalrymple, aristo and courtesan, and the two extraordinary marriages within the Bentinck family. As genealogists, they have a great facility for picking apart and exposing the family and social networks that connect Georgians, however obscure. The book includes tangential portraits of some well-known Georgian personalities: the architect John Nash plays a role as a friend of Heaviside, as does Richard Brinsley Sheridan; Henry Addington, General Sir David Ochterlony, Nicholas Vansittart, William Cobbett also feature.

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Dec 07, 2017 Rosie Amber rated it really liked it

Shelves: biography, non-fiction

A Georgian Heroine: The Intriguing Life Of Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs is a biography of an unsung heroine who I found fascinating.

Charlotte (as she preferred to be called) was born in Wales in the 1760s, was educated in France, but her main story begins in the 1770s. Her family were living in Lambeth where she fell in love with a young man called David Ochterlony. He remained in her heart for the rest of her life, but once he left England, bound for India, she never saw him again. He was to A Georgian Heroine: The Intriguing Life Of Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs is a biography of an unsung heroine who I found fascinating.

Charlotte (as she preferred to be called) was born in Wales in the 1760s, was educated in France, but her main story begins in the 1770s. Her family were living in Lambeth where she fell in love with a young man called David Ochterlony. He remained in her heart for the rest of her life, but once he left England, bound for India, she never saw him again. He was to become General Sir David Ochterlony, conqueror of Nepal, and general of the East India Company Army.

The authors have pieced together a great amount of detail from Charlotte’s life. In her late teenage years, she was to suffer at the hands of a manipulating rapist, a terrible ordeal, but one which may have fashioned her reserve later in life.

A keen royalist and a lover of France, Charlotte was later caught up in the French Revolution during the years 1792-5. Imprisoned in France, during the ‘Reign Of Terror’, Charlotte went on the write about her ordeal in a book which she had published. In England, she also became involved in writing political propaganda pamphlets, using her observations in France as evidence and arguments in her work.

Told from an era where women were given little voice or significance, Charlotte’s life achievements interested me greatly. She single-handedly initiated the 50th year Jubilee celebrations for King George III, by writing letters to all the significant towns, relying on competitive and jealous tendencies of town officials to snowball her idea into fruition. In other areas she did her best to become a female politician, by constantly writing to members of parliament with bold suggestions. One example was her views against an idea which the French had tried, to stabilise food prices. Charlotte had seen, first hand, how the system collapsed in France and, when the British suggested a similar price-cap on corn, she wrote to a prominent member of parliament with her opinions.

Her contacts and information gained in France led her to approach John Reeves in 1809 who formed the administration office of the first British Secret Service. Charlotte suggested she travel to France and act as a spy, reporting back information on life post the French Reformation.

I enjoyed this book, it was an interesting snapshot of a period of history which I know little about. Few women could have lived such an independent life as Charlotte managed. She was an author, playwright, ‘female politician’, spy and inciter of propaganda, often risking her life and her health in support of her beliefs.

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Sep 29, 2018 Jennifer rated it really liked it · review of another edition

It’s easy to think of the Georgian period as all fancy dress and good manners … until you read this book. Rachel Charlotte Williams Biggs has barely reached adulthood when she is stalked, kidnapped, raped and held captive for 2 years by a man who claims to love her. But there is still a whole life to be lived where she will work as a spy for the government, be held captive by the French, and never have the opportunity to be with the man she has always loved.

With little to go on, the authors have ...more

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