Hannah More

Hannah More (2 February 1745 – 7 September 1833) was an English writer, philanthropist, poet and playwright. She was active the circles of Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds and David Garrick and wrote on moral and religious subjects. Born in Bristol, she taught at a school her father founded there and began writing plays. She became involved in the London literary elite and a leading Bluestocking member. Her later plays and poetry became more evangelical. She joined the Clapham Sect, a group opposing the Atlantic slave trade.

In the 1790s, More wrote Cheap Repository Tracts on moral, religious and political topics, to distribute to the literate poor (as a retort to Thomas Paine's Rights of Man). Meanwhile, she broadened her links with schools she and her sister Martha had founded in rural Somerset. These curbed their teaching of the poor, allowing limited reading but no writing. More was noted for her political conservatism, being described as an anti-feminist, a counter-revolutionary, or a conservative feminist.

Early life

Hannah More was born on 2 February 1745 at Fishponds in the parish of Stapleton, near Bristol. She was the fourth of five daughters of Jacob More (1700–1783), a schoolmaster from a strong Presbyterian family in Harleston, Norfolk, who had joined the Church of England. He sought to pursue a clerical career, but after losing a lawsuit over an estate he had hoped to inherit he moved to Bristol, where he became an excise officer and later taught at the Fishponds free school.

The sisters were first educated by their father, learning Latin and mathematics. Hannah was also taught by elder sisters, through whom she learned French, which she improved conversationally by spending time with French prisoners of war in Frenchay during the Seven Years' War.

Playwright

More's first literary efforts were pastoral plays written while she was still teaching and suitable for young ladies to act. The first was The Search after Happiness, written in 1762. By the mid-1780s, over 10,000 copies of this had been sold. Among her literary models was Metastasio, on whose opera Attilio Regulo she based a drama, The Inflexible Captive.

thumb|[[Portraits in the Characters of the Muses in the Temple of Apollo|1778 painting of the Blue Stockings Society showing More standing second from right]]

In London, More sought to associate with the literary elite, including Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke. Johnson is quoted as scolding her: "Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth having." He would later be quoted as calling her "the finest versifatrix in the English language". In 1781, she met Horace Walpole and corresponded with him. At Bristol she discovered the poet Ann Yearsley. When Yearsley became destitute, More raised a considerable sum of money for her benefit. Lactilla, as Yearsley was known, 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. However, Ann Yearsley wished to receive the capital and made insinuations of stealing against More, forcing her to release it. These literary and social failures prompted More's withdrawal from London intellectual circles.

Evangelical moralist

thumb|[[Biscuit porcelain figure by Mintons, 1830s]]

In the 1780s, Hannah More became a friend of James Oglethorpe, who had long been concerned with slavery as a moral issue and who was working with Granville Sharp as an early abolitionist. More published Sacred Dramas in 1782, which rapidly ran through 19 editions. These and the poems Bas-Bleu and Florio (1786) mark a gradual transition to graver views, expressed in prose in 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 time she was close to William Wilberforce and Zachary Macaulay, sympathising with their evangelical views. Her poem Slavery appeared in 1788. For many years she was a friend of Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London and a leading abolitionist, who drew her into a group of anti-slave traders that included Wilberforce, Charles Middleton and also James Ramsay at Teston in Kent.

In 1785 More bought a house at Cowslip Green, near Wrington in northern Somerset, where she settled with her sister Martha and wrote several 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 Wife (only nominally a story, 1809), Practical Piety (1811), Christian Morals (1813), Character of St Paul (1815) and Moral Sketches (1819). She was a rapid writer. Her work, though discursive and animated, was deficient in form. Her popularity may be explained by her originality and forceful subject-matter.

The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 did not worry More initially, but by 1790 she was writing, "I have conceived an utter aversion to liberty according to the present idea of it in France. What a cruel people they are!" She praised Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France for combining "the rhetoric of ancient Gaul" and the "patriot spirit of ancient Rome" with "the deepest political sagacity". Part II of the Rights of Man, Thomas Paine's reply to Burke, appeared in 1792. The government was alarmed by its concern for the poor and call for world revolution, coupled with huge sales. Porteus visited More and asked her to write something for the lower orders to counteract Paine. This prompted a pamphlet, Village Politics (1792). More called it "as vulgar as [the] heart can wish; but it is only designed for the most vulgar class of readers." The pamphlet (published pseudonymously as by "Will Chip") consists of a dialogue in plain English between Jack Anvil, a village blacksmith, and Tom Hood, a village mason. After reading Paine, Tom Hood expresses admiration for the French Revolution to Jack Anvil and speaks in favour of a new constitution based on liberty and the "rights of man". Jack Anvil responds by praising the British constitution, saying Britain already has "the best laws in the world". He attacks French liberty as murder, French democracy as tyranny of the majority, French equality as a levelling down of social classes, French philosophy as atheism, and the "rights of man" as "battle, murder and sudden death". Tom Hood finally accepts Anvil's conclusion: "While old England is safe I'll glory in her, and pray for her; and when she is in danger I'll fight for her and die for her."

More's biographer summed up the pamphlet against Paine as "Burke for Beginners". It was well received: Porteus called it "a masterpiece of its kind, supremely excellent, greatly admired at Windsor". Frances Boscawen thought it exceeded William Paley's The British Public's Reasons for Contentment and Richard Owen Cambridge claimed "Swift could not have done it better." More's next anti-Jacobin tract, Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont, condemned atheism in France. Its profits were passed to French Catholic priests exiled in England.

The two pamphlets attracted praise from the Association for the Discountenancing of Vice, an evangelical publishing society founded in Dublin in 1792. The membership wrote to her in June 1793 congratulating her on it and inviting her to become an honorary member. Accepting, More asked the Association to send her "two or three printed papers explaining the nature of the Association as perhaps I may use them to advantage with a friend or two, distinguished for their piety and active zeal."

Cheap Repository Tracts

thumb|upright=0.9|right|[[Blue plaque on the wall of Keepers Cottage, in Brislington, Bristol]]

In 1794, when Paine published The Age of Reason, Porteus again requested More's help in combating Paine's ideas, but she declined, being preoccupied with her charity-school work. However, by the end of the year, More, encouraged by Porteus, decided to embark on a series of Cheap Repository Tracts, three of which appeared every month from 1795 to 1798. In January 1795, More explained to Zachary Macaulay: "Vulgar and indecent penny books were always common, but speculative infidelity brought down to the pockets and capacity of the poor forms a new era in our history. This requires strong counteraction." Her scheme developed from the ideas of the Association for discountenancing vice, though written in a more "readable and entertaining a style". The tracts sold 300,000 copies in March and April 1795, 700,000 by July 1795 and over two million by March 1796. They urged the poor to rely on virtues of contentment, sobriety, humility, industry, reverence for the British Constitution, hatred of the French, and trust in God and the kindness of the gentry. Perhaps the most famous is The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, describing a family of phenomenal frugality and contentment. This was translated into several languages. She also invited the Association for the Discountenancing of Vice to reprint her tracts in Ireland, which they did with success in more than 230 editions of 52 titles.

More was shocked by the strides made for female education in France: "They run to study philosophy, and neglect their families to be present at lectures in anatomy." She modelled the idealised hero and heroine in Coelebs in Search of Wife (1809) on the schools' prodigious benefactors: John and Louisa Harford of Blaise Castle. There was local opposition: Church of England vicars suspected her of advancing Methodism At Wedmore, the Dean of Wells was petitioned to have More removed from the school.

More refused to read Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792). While many women may be "fond of government", they are not, she believed, "fit for it": "To be unstable and capricious is but too characteristic of our sex." More turned down honorary membership of the Royal Society of Literature, seeing her "sex alone a disqualification". McTier was proud that in her school for poor girls her pupils "do not gabble over the testament only" and that she had those who "can read Fox and Pitt".

In 1820, More donated money to Philander Chase, the first Episcopal Bishop of Ohio for the foundation there of Kenyon College. A portrait of More hangs in its Peirce Hall.

Last years

thumb|upright=0.8|right|Bust of More in All Saints, Wrington

In Hannah More's last years, philanthropists from all parts made pilgrimages to Wrington, and after 1828 to Clifton, where she died on 7 September 1833. More left about £30,000, chiefly in legacies to charitable institutions and religious societies. The residue was to go to a new Church of St Philip and St Jacob in Bristol. She was buried beside her sisters at the Church of All Saints, Wrington, which has a bust of her in the south porch, beside one of the local son John Locke. Wringdon has named a local street the Hannah More Close. The Hannah More Academy and St. Michael's Church, both in Reisterstown, Maryland, in the United States, are named after More.

However, the Liberal politician Augustine Birrell, in his 1906 work Hannah More Once More, claimed to have buried all 19 volumes of More's works in his garden in disgust.

Selected works

:Source: victorianweb.org

The Search After Happiness, 1773
The Inflexible Captive, 1774
Sir Eldred of the Bower and the Bleeding Rock, 1776
Essays on Various Subjects, 1777
Percy: A Tragedy, 1777
Sacred Dramas and Sensibility: A Poem, 1782
Florio, 1786
The Bas Bleu, 1786
Slavery: A Poem, 1788
Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great to General Society, 1788
Bishop Bonner's Ghost, 1789.
An Estimate of the Religion of the Fashionable World, 1791
Village Politics, 1793
Remarks on the Speech of M. Dupont, 1793
Cheap Repository Tracts, 1795-98.
Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, 1799
"The White Slave Trade" published in the Christian Observer, 1799
Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess, 1805
Coelebs in Search of a Wife, 1808
Practical Piety, 1811
Christian Morals, 1813
Essay on the Character and Writings of St Paul, 1815
Cheap Repository Tracts Suited to the Present Times, 1819
Moral Sketches, 1819
The Twelfth of August, or The Feast of Freedom, 1819
"Queen Caroline affair", 1820
Bible Rhymes, 1821
The Spirit of Prayer, 1825

References

Sources

Resources

Primary sources

Hannah More, Works of Hannah More, 2 vols. New York: Harper, 1840

Biographies

Anna Jane Buckland, The life of Hannah More. A lady of two centuries. London: Religious Tract Society, 1882, [https://archive.org/details/lifeofhannahmore00buck]
Jeremy and Margaret Collingwood, Hannah More. Oxford: Lion Publishing, 1990,
Crossley Evans, Martin, Hannah More. Bristol Historical Association pamphlets, no. 99, 1999, 32 pp.
Patricia Demers, The World of Hannah More. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1996,
Charles Howard Ford, Hannah More: A Critical Biography. New York: Peter Lang, 1996,
Marion Harland, Hannah More. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900
Mary Alen Hopkins, Hannah More and Her Circle. London: Longmans, 1947
M. G. Jones, Hannah More Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1952
Helen C. Knight, Hannah More; or, Life in Hall and Cottage. New York: M. W. Dodd, 1851
Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace, Their Fathers' Daughters: Hannah More, Maria Edgeworth, and Patriarchal Complicity. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991
Annette Mary Budgett Meakin, Hannah More: A Biographical Study. London: John Murray, 1919
Karen Swallow Prior, Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More—Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist. Nashville: Nelson Books, 2014,
William Roberts, ed., Memoirs of Mrs Hannah More. New York: Harper & Bros., 1836
Anne Stott, Hannah More: The First Victorian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003,
Thomas Taylor, Memoir of Mrs. Hannah More. London: Joseph Rickerby, 1838
Henry Thompson, The Life of Hannah More With Notices of Her Sisters. London: T. Cadell, 1838
Charlotte Yonge, Hannah More. Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1888

Other sources

Jacqueline McMillan, "Hannah More: From Versificatrix to Saint", In Her Hand: Letters of Romantic-Era British Women Writers in New Zealand Collections. Otago Students of Letters. Dunedin, New Zealand: University of Otago, Department of English, 2013. pp. 23–46. Includes five letters and a poem, hitherto unpublished.
Mitzi Myers, "Hannah More's Tracts for the Times: Social Fiction and Female Ideology", Fetter'd or Free? British Women Novelists, 1670–1815. Mary Anne Schofield and Cecilia Macheski, eds. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1986
Mona Scheuerman, In Praise of Poverty: Hannah More Counters Thomas Paine and the Radical Threat. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2002
Kathryn Sutherland, "Hannah More's Counter-Revolutionary Feminism", Revolution in Writing: British Literary Responses to the French Revolution. Kelvin Everest, ed. 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

External links

Hannah More at the Eighteenth-Century Poetry Archive (ECPA)
Works by Hannah More at Osborne Collection of Early Children's Books (Toronto Public Library)
Hannah More from Brycchan Carey's listing of British abolitionists
The full text of Slavery, A Poem available online
The full text of The Sorrows of Yamba available online
Original 1797 edition of a printed pamphlet of The Sorrows of Yamba