• Name: Williams, Helen Maria
• Gender: Female
• Birth Date: 17  June  1761
• Death Date: 15  December  1827
• Occupation: writer

Her friendship with Godwin is well-documented: all instances of Miss Williams/HMW have been coded and while one or two plain Williams entries could conceivably be her, these have been left uncoded for the sake of consistency. Her virtual disappearance from the diary in 1791 coincides with her move to Paris, and as the majority of plain Williams entries appear after this point then this is further reason for excluding these. Of the five entries after 1791, two are to her being the subject of conversation. But there are also three meetings:

8.3.1795: 'Dine at Foulkes's, w. sir F. Rogers, Smith surgn, Young, Robinson, Parker and Hts; adv. Woods and miss Williams.'

7.4.1795: 'Dine at Foulkes's, w. Aris's, Pikes, Woods, and mes Harris and Williams.'

18.5.1796: 'tea miss Mansel's, w. miss Williams:'

These are irreconcilable with Deborah Kennedy's Helen Maria Williams and the Age of Revolution: 'On 5 August 1792, when she left once more for France, she did not know that "liberty" was about to be defiled; nor could she have known that she would never return to England again.' p. 89. It clearly was possible to travel from France to England (and back), but we simply have no evidence other than these entries to suggest that Helen Maria Williams did so.

See, however, the letter from Godwin to his wife in September 1819, in which he mentions Helen Maria Williams in familiar terms and says that she (Williams) is anxious to hear from Mary Jane. This suggests some continued contact between Godwin and Williams after her departure for France in 1791.

• MS. Abinger c. 43, fol. 7: 11 Sept. 1819
• DNB
• Deborah Kennedy, Helen Maria Williams and the Age of Revolution (Lewisburg and London: Bucknell University Press and Associated University Presses, 2002).

This table lists the people this person is most frequently noted with in the diary.