Hannah More was an English religious writer, philanthropist, poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, who wrote on moral and religious subjects.
26 Facts About Hannah More
2.
Hannah More became involved in the London literary elite and a leading Bluestocking member.
3.
Hannah More 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.
4.
Hannah More was 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.
5.
Hannah More became a pupil in the girls' school when she was twelve and taught there in early adulthood.
6.
In 1767 Hannah More gave up her share in the school on becoming engaged to William Turner of the Belmont Estate, Wraxall, Somerset, whom she had met when he began teaching her cousins.
7.
In London, Hannah More sought to associate with the literary elite, including Samuel Johnson, Joshua Reynolds and Edmund Burke.
8.
Hannah More attended the salon of Elizabeth Montagu, where she met Frances Boscawen, Elizabeth Carter, Elizabeth Vesey and Hester Chapone, some of whom would be lifelong friends.
9.
When Yearsley became destitute, Hannah More raised a considerable sum of money for her benefit.
10.
However, Ann Yearsley wished to receive the capital and made insinuations of stealing against Hannah More, forcing her to release it.
11.
Hannah More published Sacred Dramas in 1782, which rapidly ran through 19 editions.
12.
In 1785 Hannah 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, Hints towards Forming the Character of a Young Princess, Coelebs in Search of a Wife, Practical Piety, Christian Morals, Character of St Paul and Moral Sketches.
13.
Porteus visited Hannah More and asked her to write something for the lower orders to counteract Paine.
14.
Hannah More's biographer summed up the pamphlet against Paine as "Burke for Beginners".
15.
In 1794, when Paine published The Age of Reason, a deist attack on Christianity, Porteus again requested Hannah More's help in combating Paine's ideas, but she declined, being preoccupied with her charity-school work.
16.
However, by the end of the year, Hannah More, encouraged by Porteus, decided to embark on a series of Cheap Repository Tracts, three of which appeared every month from 1795 to 1798.
17.
Hannah More 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.
18.
Hannah More remained active with several Somerset schools for the destitute that she and her sister Martha had founded from the 1780s, with Wilberforce's encouragement.
19.
Hannah More modelled the idealised hero and heroine in Coelebs in Search of Wife on the schools' prodigious benefactors: John and Louisa Harford of Blaise Castle.
20.
In regards to her choice of subjects Hannah More declared "I allow of no writing for the poor" and that they were not to be made "scholars and philosophers".
21.
At Wedmore, the Dean of Wells was petitioned to have Hannah More removed from the school.
22.
Hannah More refused to read Mary Wollstonecraft's Vindication of the Rights of Women.
23.
Hannah More 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.
24.
Hannah More's image appeared in 2012 on the Bristol Pound, a local currency.
25.
In 2022, Hannah More was officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 6 September.
26.
Records relating to Hannah More appear at the British Library, Manuscript Collections, Longleat, Newport Central Library, the Bodleian Library, Cambridge University: St John's College Library, the Victoria and Albert Museum, Bristol Reference Library, Cambridge University Library, The Women's Library, Gloucestershire Archives, and National Museums Liverpool: Maritime Archives and Library.