Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson,
ReynoldsSir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
and
GarrickDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical
philanthropistA philanthropist is someone who engages in philanthropy; that is, someone who donates his or her time, money, and/or reputation to charitable causes...
.
Early life
Born in 1745 at Fishponds in the parish of
StapletonStapleton is an area in the north-eastern suburbs of the city of Bristol, England. The name is colloquially used today to describe the ribbon village along Bell Hill and Park Road in the Frome Valley. It borders Eastville to the South and Begbrook and Frenchay to the North...
, near
BristolBristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...
, Hannah More was the fourth of five daughters of Jacob More, a schoolmaster originally from
HarlestonHarleston may refer to:*Harleston, Devon*Harleston, Norfolk*Harleston, Suffolk...
,
NorfolkNorfolk is a low-lying county in the East of England. It has borders with Lincolnshire to the west, Cambridgeshire to the west and southwest and Suffolk to the south. Its northern and eastern boundaries are the North Sea coast and to the north-west the county is bordered by The Wash. The county...
. He was from a strong Presbyterian family in Norfolk, but had become a member of the
Church of EnglandThe Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
, and originally intended to pursue a career in the Church, but after the disappointment of losing a lawsuit over an estate he had hoped to inherit, he moved to Bristol, where he became an
exciseExcise tax in the United States is a indirect tax on listed items. Excise taxes can be and are made by federal, state and local governments and are far from uniform throughout the United States...
officer and was later appointed teacher at the Fishponds
free schoolFree education refers to education that is funded through taxation, or charitable organizations rather than tuition fees. Although primary school and other comprehensive or compulsory education is free in many countries, for example, all education is mostly free including...
.
They were a close family and the sisters were first educated by their father, learning
LatinLatin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
and
mathematicsMathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
: Hannah was also taught by her elder sisters, through whom she learned French. She was keen to learn, and possessed a sharp intellect - she was assiduous in studying and, according to family tradition, began writing at an early age.
In 1758 Jacob established his own girls'
boarding schoolA boarding school is a school where some or all pupils study and live during the school year with their fellow students and possibly teachers and/or administrators. The word 'boarding' is used in the sense of "bed and board," i.e., lodging and meals...
at Trinity Street in Bristol for the elder sisters, Mary and Elizabeth to run, while he and his wife moved to Stony Hill in the city to open a school for boys. More became a pupil when she was twelve years old, and taught at the school in her early adulthood.
Playwright
Hannah More's first literary efforts were pastoral plays, written while she was teaching at the school and suitable for young ladies to act, the first being written in 1762 under the title of
The Search after Happiness; by the mid-1780s over 10,000 copies had been sold.
MetastasioPietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi, better known by his pseudonym of Metastasio, was an Italian poet and librettist, considered the most important writer of opera seria libretti.-Early life:...
was one of her literary models; on his opera of
Attilio Regulo she based a drama,
The Inflexible Captive.
In 1767 More gave up her share in the school after becoming engaged to William Turner of
TyntesfieldTyntesfield is a Victorian Gothic Revival estate near Wraxall, North Somerset, England, near Nailsea, seven miles from Bristol.The house was acquired by the National Trust in June 2002 after a fund raising campaign to prevent it being sold to private interests and ensure it be opened to the public...
,
Wraxall, SomersetWraxall is a village in North Somerset in England. The parish of the same name also included Nailsea and Flax Bourton until 1811. It is now within the parish of Wraxall and Failand.-History:...
. After six years the wedding had not taken place and Turner seemed reluctant to name a date, and in 1773 the engagement was broken off; it seems that, as a consequence, More suffered a nervous breakdown and spent some time in
UphillUphill is a village on the edge of Weston-super-Mare in North Somerset, England.-History:There is evidence of a port at Uphill since Roman times, probably for the export of lead from the Mendip Hills...
, near
Weston-super-MareWeston-super-Mare is a seaside resort, town and civil parish in the unitary authority of North Somerset, which is within the ceremonial county of Somerset, England. It is located on the Bristol Channel coast, south west of Bristol, spanning the coast between the bounding high ground of Worlebury...
, recuperating. As compensation, Hannah More was induced to accept a £200 annuity from Turner. This set her free for literary pursuits, and in the winter of 1773–74 she went to London in the company of her sisters, Sarah and Martha – the first of many such trips she made at yearly intervals. Some verses that she had written on
David Garrick'sDavid Garrick was an English actor, playwright, theatre manager and producer who influenced nearly all aspects of theatrical practice throughout the 18th century and was a pupil and friend of Dr Samuel Johnson...
version of
King LearKing Lear is a tragedy by William Shakespeare. The title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. The play is based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological...
led to an acquaintance with the celebrated actor and playwright.
Within a short time More had associated herself with London's literary elite, including
Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
,
Joshua ReynoldsSir Joshua Reynolds RA FRS FRSA was an influential 18th-century English painter, specialising in portraits and promoting the "Grand Style" in painting which depended on idealization of the imperfect. He was one of the founders and first President of the Royal Academy...
and
Edmund BurkeEdmund Burke PC was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist and philosopher who, after moving to England, served for many years in the House of Commons of Great Britain as a member of the Whig party....
. She also became one of the foremost members of the so-called
bluestockingA bluestocking is an educated, intellectual woman. Until the late 18th century, the term had referred to learned people of both sexes. However it subsequently was applied primarily to intellectual women, and the French equivalent bas bleu had a similar connotation. The term later developed...
group of women engaged in polite conversation and literary and intellectual pursuits, attending the salon of
Elizabeth MontaguElizabeth Montagu was a British social reformer, patron of the arts, salonist, literary critic, and writer who helped organize and lead the bluestocking society...
, where she also met and became acquainted with Frances Boscawen,
Elizabeth CarterElizabeth Carter was an English poet, classicist, writer and translator, and a member of the Bluestocking Circle.-Biography:...
,
Elizabeth VeseyElizabeth Vesey was a wealthy English intellectual who is credited with fostering the Bluestockings, a society of women which hosted informal literary and political discussions of which she was an important member.-Life:Her girlish figure and flirtatious wit earned her the nickname of Sylph...
and
Hester ChaponeHester Chapone , writer of conduct books for women, was born on 27 October 1727 at Twywell, Northamptonshire,The daughter of Thomas Mulso , a gentleman farmer, and his wife , a daughter of Colonel Thomas, Hester wrote a romance at the age of nine, 'The Loves of Amoret and Melissa', which earned...
, some of whom were to become lifelong friends. She later wrote a witty celebration of her friends and the circle to which they belonged in her 1782 poem
The Bas Bleu, or, Conversation, published in 1784.
Garrick wrote the prologue and epilogue for Hannah More's tragedy
Percy, which was acted with great success at
Covent GardenThe Royal Opera House is an opera house and major performing arts venue in Covent Garden, central London. The large building is often referred to as simply "Covent Garden", after a previous use of the site of the opera house's original construction in 1732. It is the home of The Royal Opera, The...
in December 1777. Another drama,
The Fatal Falsehood, produced in 1779 after Garrick's death, was less successful and, as a consequence of its failure, she never wrote for the stage again. In 1781 she first met Horace Walpole, man of letters and art historian, and corresponded with him from that time. At Bristol she discovered the poet
Ann YearsleyAnn Yearsley née Cromartie was an English poet and writer.Born in Bristol to John and Anne Cromartie , Ann married John Yearsley, a yeoman, in 1774. A decade later the family were rescued from destitution by the charity of Hannah More and others. More organized subscriptions for Yearsley to...
and, when she became destitute, raised a considerable sum of money for her benefit. Lactilia, as Yearsley was called, published
Poems, on Several Occasions in 1785, earning about £600. More and Montagu held the profits in trust to protect them from Yearsley's husband: Anne Yearsley wished to receive the capital, and made insinuations of stealing against More, forcing her to release the money. These literary and social failures caused More's withdrawal from London's intellectual circles.
Evangelical moralist
Hannah More published
Sacred Dramas in 1782 and it rapidly ran through nineteen editions. These and the poems
Bas-Bleu and
Florio (1786) mark her gradual transition to more serious views of life, which were fully expressed in prose, in her
Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society (1788), and
An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World (1790). By this point she was intimate with
William WilberforceWilliam Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire...
and
Zachary MacaulayZachary Macaulay was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of the Rev. John Macaulay Zachary Macaulay (2 May 1768 – 13 May 1838) was a slavery abolitionist and campaigner.-Early life:Macaulay was born in Inveraray, Scotland, the son of...
, with whose evangelical views she was in sympathy. She published a poem on
SlaverySlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
in 1788, and was for many years a friend of Beilby Porteus,
Bishop of LondonThe Bishop of London is the ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of London in the Province of Canterbury.The diocese covers 458 km² of 17 boroughs of Greater London north of the River Thames and a small part of the County of Surrey...
and a leading
abolitionistAbolitionism is a movement to end slavery.In western Europe and the Americas abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and set slaves free. At the behest of Dominican priest Bartolomé de las Casas who was shocked at the treatment of natives in the New World, Spain enacted the first...
, who drew her into the group of prominent campaigners against the slave trade such as Wilberforce,
Charles MiddletonAdmiral Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham PC was a British naval officer and politician.He was born at Leith, Midlothian to Robert Middleton, a customs collector of Bo'ness, Linlithgowshire, and Helen, daughter of Charles Dundas.-Naval career:Middleton entered the Royal Navy in 1741 as captain's...
and
James RamsayJames Ramsay was a ship’s surgeon, Anglican priest, and leading abolitionist.-Early life and Naval service:Ramsay was born at Fraserburgh, Scotland, the son of William Ramsay, ship’s carpenter, and Margaret Ogilvie. He was apprenticed to a local surgeon and later educated at King's College,...
, based at
TestonTeston is a village in the Maidstone District of Kent, England. It is located on the A26 road out of Maidstone, four miles from the town centre. There is a narrow stone bridge over the River Medway here....
,
KentKent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
.
In 1785 she bought a house, at Cowslip Green, near
WringtonWrington is a village and civil parish in North Somerset, England. It lies in the valley of the Congresbury Yeo river about east of Weston-super-Mare and south-east of Yatton. It is both a civil parish, with a population of 2,896, and an ecclesiastical parish...
, in northern
SomersetThe ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...
, where she settled down to country life with her sister Martha, and wrote many ethical books and tracts:
Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education (1799),
Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess (1805),
Coelebs in Search of a WifeCoelebs in Search of a Wife is a novel by the British Christian moralist Hannah More. It was followed by Coelebs Married in 1814....
(only nominally a story, 1809),
Practical Piety (1811),
Christian Morals (1813),
Character of St Paul (1815),
Moral Sketches (1819). She was a rapid writer, and her work is consequently discursive, animated and formless. The originality and force of More's writings perhaps explains her extraordinary popularity. At the behest of Porteus, she wrote many spirited rhymes and prose tales, the earliest of which was
Village Politics, by Will Chip (1792), intended to counteract the doctrines of
Thomas PaineThomas "Tom" Paine was an English author, pamphleteer, radical, inventor, intellectual, revolutionary, and one of the Founding Fathers of the United States...
and the influence of the
French RevolutionThe French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
. More became a prominent opponent of the
slave tradeBristol is a city in the South West of England. It is located on the River Avon which flows into the Severn Estuary. Because of Bristol’s position on the River Avon, it has been an important location for marine trade for centuries...
in the late 18th century.
The success of
Village Politics induced More and Porteus to begin the series of
Cheap Repository TractsThe Cheap Repository Tracts was a series of around 120 political and religious tracts published between March 1795 and December 1797, for sale or distribution to literate poor people, as an alternative to the ‘corrupt and vicious little books and ballads which have been hung out of windows in the...
, which from 1795 to 1797 were produced at the rate of three a month. Perhaps the most famous of these is
The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, describing a family of phenomenal frugality and contentment. This was translated into several languages. Two million copies of these rapid and telling sketches were circulated, in one year, teaching the poor in rhetoric of most ingenious homeliness to rely upon the virtues of content, sobriety, humility, industry, reverence for the
British ConstitutionThe constitution of the United Kingdom is the set of laws and principles under which the United Kingdom is governed.Unlike many other nations, the UK has no single core constitutional document. In this sense, it is said not to have a written constitution but an uncodified one...
, hatred of the French, trust in God and in the kindness of the
gentryGentry denotes "well-born and well-bred people" of high social class, especially in the past....
.
Philanthropist
In the late-1780s Hannah and Martha More conducted philanthropic work in the
Mendip*Mendip, a local government district of Somerset, UK**Mendip Hills , a group of hills in the above district**Chewton Mendip, a village in the Mendip Hills**Mendip TV Mast, a transmitter in the Mendips area...
area, following encouragement by Wilberforce, who saw the poor conditions of the locals when he visited
CheddarCheddar is a large village and civil parish in the Sedgemoor district of the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, north-west of Wells. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross...
in 1789. She was instrumental in setting up twelve schools by 1800 where reading,
the BibleThe Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
and the
catechismA catechism , i.e. to indoctrinate) is a summary or exposition of doctrine, traditionally used in Christian religious teaching from New Testament times to the present...
— but not writing — were taught to local children. More also donated money to Bishop
Philander ChasePhilander Chase was an Episcopal Church bishop, educator, and pioneer of the United States western frontier in Ohio and Illinois.-Life:...
for the founding of
Kenyon CollegeKenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...
. The More sisters met with a good deal of opposition in their works: the farmers thought that education, even to the limited extent of learning to read, would be fatal to agriculture, and the clergy, whose neglect she was making good, accused her of Methodist tendencies. In her old age, philanthropists from all parts made pilgrimages to see the bright and amiable old lady, and she retained all her faculties until within two years of her death. She spent the last five years of her life in
CliftonClifton is a suburb of the City of Bristol in England, and the name of both one of the city's thirty-five council wards. The Clifton ward also includes the areas of Cliftonwood and Hotwells...
, and died on 7 September 1833. She is buried at
Church of All Saints, WringtonThe Church of All Saints in Wrington, Somerset, England has 13th-century foundations, and was remodelled with the addition of a west tower around 1450. It is a Grade I listed building....
.
Legacy
Several local schools and the
Hannah More AcademySt. Michael's Church, also known as St. Michael's Chapel and Hannah More Chapel, is a historic Episcopal Church located at Academy Lane and Reisterstown Road in Reisterstown, Baltimore County, Maryland. It is a small, Carpenter Gothic-style, board and batten frame structure. It features a simple...
at
Reisterstown, MarylandReisterstown is an unincorporated community and census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland. Founded by German immigrant John Reister in 1758, it is located to the northwest of Baltimore. Though it is older than the areas surrounding it, it now serves primarily as a residential suburb of...
are named in her honor.
Biographies
- Collingwood, Jeremy and Margaret. Hannah More. Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1990.
- Demers, Patricia. The World of Hannah More. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996.
- Ford, Charles Howard. Hannah More: A Critical Biography. New York: Peter Lang, 1996.
- Harland, Marion. Hannah More. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900.
- Hopkins, Mary Alden. Hannah More and Her Circle. London: Longmans, 1947.
- Jones, M. G. Hannah More Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952.
- Knight, Helen C. Hannah More; or, Life in Hall and Cottage. New York: M. W. Dodd, 1851.
- Kowaleski-Wallace, Elizabeth. Their Fathers’ Daughters: Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and Patriarchal Complicity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
- Roberts, William
William Roberts was an English barrister and legal writer, an evangelical journal editor and the first biographer of Hannah More.-Life:...
, ed. Memoirs of Mrs Hannah More. New York: Harper & Bros., 1836.
- Stott, Anne. Hannah More: The First Victorian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
- Taylor, Thomas. Memoir of Mrs. Hannah More. London: Joseph Rickerby, 1838.
- Thompson, Henry. The Life of Hannah More With Notices of Her Sisters. London: T. Cadell, 1838.
- Yonge, Charlotte. Hannah More. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1888.
Other secondary sources
- Myers, Mitzi. "Hannah More's Tracts for the Times: Social Fiction and Female Ideology." Fetter'd or Free? British Women Novelists, 1670–1815. Eds. Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986.
- Scheuerman, Mona. In Praise of Poverty: Hannah More Counters Thomas Paine and the Radical Threat. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002.
- Sutherland, Kathryn. "Hannah More's Counter-Revolutionary Feminism." Revolution in Writing: British Literary Responses to the French Revolution. Ed. Kelvin Everest. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1991.
- A Comparative Study of Three Anti-Slavery Poems Written by William Blake, Hannah More and Marcus Garvey: Black Stereotyping by Jérémie Kroubo Dagnini for GRAAT On-Line, January 2010
Archives
Papers of Hannah More are held at The Women's Library at
London Metropolitan UniversityLondon Metropolitan University , located in London, England, was formed on 1 August 2002 by the amalgamation of the University of North London and the London Guildhall University . The University has campuses in the City of London and in the London Borough of Islington.The University operates its...
, ref
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External links