Patience Wright: Spy

Lifesize waxwork of "William Pitt"
by Patience Wright

"Patience Wright's reputation as one of the 'lions of London' was soon threatened, however. War was imminent, and as an ardent patriot, Wright used the waxworks as a rendezvous for plotters, a place where military information could be wormed out of visitors and sent in hastily scribbled letters to Franklin, Adams, and others - or stuffed into wax heads and sent across the sea to her sister Rachel in the States. After the Boston Tea Party she sent information to Lord Chatham that helped him support the American cause in Parliament.

The value of most of this amateur spying is dubious, but Wright was certainly effective in her efforts to help a number of endangered Americans. Although she was tolerated for a while by the Crown, Wright soon overstepped the bounds. According to several accounts, she stamped into the palace after the battles of Lexington and Concord and berated the king for his oppressive policies. At a public gathering she announced that the Americans could never be defeated.

The laudatory articles in the newspapers stopped abruptly; her movements were closely watched and her correspondence intercepted. The political climate was so warm that Wright wrote to Franklin in Paris:

'I have moved from Pall mall with the full Perpose of mind to settel my afair and get Ready for my Return to america... I shall take France in my way and call at Parris where I hope to have the Pleaser of seeing my old american Friends - and take off some of your cappatal Bustos in wax. England will very soon be no longer a pattron for artists. The Ingeneous must flye to the Land of Pease & Liberty... I beg the favr of you to Recommend my Performans. Yr. old Friend, P. Wright'

In spite of this, after the American victory, Wright returned to London and lived quietly with her daughter and son-in-law, distinguished portrait painter John Hoppner."

To be continued

(Excerpts from "American Women Sculptors" by Charlotte Streifer Rubinstein.)