Elizabeth Bathurst

For International Women’s Day 2025, we are showcasing a book with a unique trail of female authorship, printing, and ownership.  

‘Truth Vindicated…’ (Old Library H.20.178) is a work written, printed and owned by three different women over the course of three centuries. It was originally penned by Elizabeth Bathurst in the 17th century, printed by Mary Hinde in the 18th century and owned by Elizabeth Grubb in the 19th century.

Elizabeth Bathurst (1655–1685), a Quaker theologian and preacher, first published Truth’s Vindication in 1679.  It is Bathurst’s most significant work, and is a passionate defence of Quaker beliefs and practices with a theological grounding. Truth’s Vindication was reprinted many times by Quaker publishers – a mark of the work’s popularity.  Following Bathurst’s death, a posthumous collection of her works (slightly confusingly titled Truth Vindicated) was first printed in 1691 by Tace Sowle, a Quaker printer who inherited her father’s business that same year[i].   

Truth Vindicated  includes biographical testimony by Bathurst’s father, Charles, who noted that despite Elizabeth’s frailty, ‘the Lord was pleased to supply with large Endowments of Mind, her Memory very great, her Understanding very Ripe’.[ii] In another testimony, George Whitehead defended Bathurst against societal scepticism that Bathurst was incapable of intellectual writing: ‘And because of the Meanness or Weakness of her Person, some People would not believe that her Book entituled Truth’s Vindication, &c. was of her own inditing…but I am a Witness it was her own, and proceeded from her own proper Gift received; she shewed it me in her own Handwriting, before it was printed, and gave sufficient Demonstration of her Understanding in those Subjects she writ upon’[iii].

The book in the Old Library is a third edition of Truth Vindicated, which was printed in 1773 by Mary Hinde.  Hinde, like Sowle, was a Quaker printer: Hinde’s husband, Luke, was the principal printer for the Society of Friends in London[iv]. As we have seen in our blog discussing women printers, it was common practice for widows to continue a deceased husband’s printing business.  This edition of Truth Vindicated was published two years before Hinde’s retirement[v].

Bathurst’s works evidently enjoyed longevity, as the inscription of Elizabeth Grubb, a former owner of the book, is dated 1811.  Grubb’s identity is not known with absolute certainty; however, an inscription by a woman of the same name appears in a published memoir of Louisa Maw (1773-1856), a Quaker. The handwriting of the owner of this book, which is part of the Sessions Book Trust Collection at the University of York, appears to match Elizabeth Grubb’s in the Old Library’s copy of Truth Vindicated. 

Truth Vindicated also contains two cuttings from previous booksellers, who both note that it was the first time they had encountered a rare book written, printed and owned by three women. I’d be happy to hear of examples in other libraries which could be described similarly.

By Catherine Sutherland
Special Collections Librarian

[i] Elizabeth Bathurst | Orlando

[ii] Bathurst, E. (1773) Truth vindicated, by the faithful testimony and writings of the innocent servant and hand-maid of the Lord, Elizabeth Bathurst, deceased. The third edition. London: printed and sold by Mary Hinde.  Leaf A3r.

[iii] Ibid, leaves a2r-a2v

[iv] Mary Hinde | Feminist Bibliography

[v] ibid