Honora Edgeworth (née Sneyd;[a] 1751 – 1 May 1780) was an eighteenth-century English writer, mainly known for her associations with literary figures of the day particularly Anna Seward and the Lunar Society, and for her work on children's education.

Sneyd was born in Bath in 1751, and following the death of her mother in 1756 was raised by Canon Thomas Seward and his wife Elizabeth in Lichfield, Staffordshire until she returned to her father's house in 1771.

Having had a romantic engagement to John André and having declined the hand of Thomas Day, she married Richard Edgeworth as his second wife in 1773, living on the family estate in Ireland till 1776.

[7][14][15] Anna Seward describes how she and her younger sister Sarah first met Honora, on returning from a walk, in her poem The Anniversary (1769).

[20] However, Anna Seward believed she detected the first signs in 1764, at thirteen, writing presciently This dear child will not live; I am perpetually fearing it, notwithstanding the clear health which crimsons her cheek and glitters in her eyes.

Such early expansion of intelligence and sensibility partakes too much of the angelic, too little of the mortal nature, to tarry long in these low abodes of frailty and of pain, where the harshness of authority, and the impenetrability of selfishness, with the worse mischiefs of pride and envy, so frequently agitate by their storms, and chill by their damps, the more ingenious and purer spirits, scattered, not profusely, over the earth.

[18] Honora Sneyd was an accomplished scholar, attending day school in Lichfield where she became fluent in French, translating Rousseau's Julie for her older foster sister.

[28] Various authors differ in their interpretation of the relationship between the two women, with Lillian Faderman who first suggested that it was lesbian,[29] supported by Barrett[30] although the term relates more to twentieth- rather than eighteenth-century concepts of identity.

[42] Miss Honora Sneyd would not admit the unqualified control of a husband over all her actions; she did not feel, that seclusion from society was indispensably necessary to preserve female virtue, or to secure domestic happiness.

Upon terms of reasonable equality, she supposed, that mutual confidence might best subsist; she said, that, as Mr Day had decidedly declared his determination to live in perfect seclusion from what is usually called the world, it was fit she should decidedly declare, that she would not change her present mode of life, with which she had no reason to be dissatisfied, for any dark and untried system, that could be proposed to her.

[37] The elimination of Day as a suitor for Honora Sneyd's hand placed Edgeworth in a difficult situation and he resolved to end it by moving to Lyons France, to work, in the autumn of 1771.

On learning that she remained in good health and unattached, he promptly headed to Lichfield to see Honora at the Sneyds, with the intention of proposing.

[74] Richard Edgeworth considered his early educational efforts a failure, the older children from his first marriage growing up unruly and then being sent away to school, and readily concurred with his new wife's stricter rules.

[73] After three years in Ireland, in 1776[i] they moved to England again, taking up residence in Northchurch,[j]Hertfordshire[80] Despite Anna Seward's despair at the loss of her friend, she and Honora had maintained regular correspondence and visits.

[81] During a temporary absence of Edgeworth on business in Ireland in the spring of 1779, Honora Sneyd fell ill with a fever,[82] just as he was summoning her to let the house and join him there.

[87] Four years after returning to England Honora Sneyd died of consumption at six in the morning[87] on 1 May 1780[l] at Bighterton, surrounded by her husband, her youngest sister, Charlotte and a servant.

[88] Honora Sneyd was buried in the nearby Weston church where a plaque on the wall (see box) bears witness to her life.

[93] Although it was technically legal to marry one's wife's sister, the marriage was considered scandalous, and was opposed by the Sneyds, Sewards and Edgeworths as well as the Bishop.

After the birth of Honora's first child (1774),[n] the Edgeworths embarked on a plan, partly inspired by Anna Barbauld, to write a series of books for children.

[102][103] After trying many other methods, Barbauld's Lessons for Children from two to three years old was published in 1778, and the Edgeworths used it on Anna (5) and Honora (4), and were delighted to find that the girls learned to read in six weeks.

They started by reviewing the existing literature on childhood education (including Locke, Hartley, Priestley in addition to Rousseau), and then proceeded to document their observations of the behaviour of children and then developed their own "practical" system.

[103] Richard and Maria Edgeworth state that "She [Honora] was of opinion that the art of education should be considered as an experimental science",[106] and that the failures of the past were due to "following theory rather than practice".

[110] it was an ambitious project designed to fill what they perceived of as major deficiencies in the field of both technical and scientific education and to introduce early ideas on morality, science and other academic disciplines into the developing mind of the young child.

[111] After Honora Sneyd's premature death, her sister Elizabeth continued the work,[112] in her role as the third wife of Richard Edgeworth.

[112][10][103] She conceived and executed a register (2 volumes 1778–1779)[118][75] of the reaction of children to new knowledge and experience,[111] given her interest in applying experimental science to the field of child education.

[110] Honora Sneyd, through her early contact with members of the Lunar Society, had always taken a keen interest in science, an attribute that drew the intention of Richard Edgeworth who considered himself an inventor.

[122] Since little of Honora Sneyd's own words have survived, our image of her is largely through the eyes of others, in particular Anna Seward and Richard Edgeworth.

[121] Anna,[129] and later Honora's stepdaughter, Maria Edgeworth,[130] were to take those values and promote them in late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Britain, the ancestors of modern feminists.

[131] Today Honora's position on women's rights is best remembered for her rebuke of Thomas Day and his theory of the "perfect wife".