Hannah More: The story of a Bristolian Abolitionist, advocate for the poor, and champion of female education
By Jemima Sutton, Third Year History
Born and based here in Bristol, Hannah More was an intellect and social reformer in late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century England. More was one of the leading women in the British Abolitionist movement, and a close acquaintance to William Wilberforce. While being ideologically opposed to revolution, she believed that reform was needed to counteract the excesses of Georgian sociability.[1] More believed that reform was needed to improve the conditions for the poor, provide education to women, and to counteract the moral injustices caused by the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African persons.
At the time of More’s writing, England was marked by conservative anxieties that were sparked by international revolutions, most prominently in America and France. More’s ideas found fertile soil in this climate, with her upholding of traditional, conservative ideals, and staunch condemnation of social and political revolution.
Biographies of More since the mid-twentieth century have typically painted her as an ‘anti-feminist’ due to her conservative views of society and opposition to equal rights for women. However, she was a greatly influential woman who worked independently of men, and after splitting from her fiancé, she became a renowned public figure due to her abilities as a playwright and author. Her passion and commitment to social projects showed her genuine concern for social reform.[2] More’s advocacy for female education was heavily influenced by her upbringing. Born in 1745, More was raised alongside her four sisters in the Fishponds area of Bristol, where they were educated by their father, who founded a nearby school and taught as its school master.
This education allowed More to become a great writer and a renowned playwright. She authored many famous tracts and other genres of literature. Her deeply religious upbringing was also carried into her livelihood, where she found acquaintances and colleagues in other like-minded Evangelical conservatives in Bath and London. More later joined the Clapham Sect, an Evangelical group where she became more connected to movements that aligned with her interests in spreading moral reform, and who also called for the abolition of slavery. Many members of this group, like Wilberforce, had ties to Parliament and were influential in passing of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, followed by the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. These Acts banned the purchase and ownership of African enslaved persons in Britain and in the British Colonies.
More believed that slavery was the work of the ‘white savage’ who ruled by the ‘lust of gold’, as quoted from her famous poem titled ‘Slavery’ (1788). This poem shows how More used her moral beliefs and female Christian status to condemn slavery and the greed of British merchants and businessmen involved in the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.
One of More’s more famous works, Village Politics, was a tract written in 1792 to counteract Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man (1791). Tracts were pamphlet-like writings that were a popular in eighteenth-century England and used to circulate political and religious ideas among the literate masses. More’s series of tracts sought to promote Evangelical and Abolitionist ideals to the poor, though ideas were more popular in conservative and wealthy circles. These tracts were read, especially, by women and clergymen.[3] More was outraged by Paine’s radical ideas that attacked orthodox Christianity and supported revolution, so in her tract she criticised the violence of Revolution in France and upheld the British political system with its traditional values. Published under the pseudonym ‘Will Chip’, Village Politics was so popular that she wrote a subsequent series called Cheap Repository Tracts (1795-1817). Selling for a penny each, two million of the tracts were circulated in a single year.
One of More’s strongest beliefs were that women were meant to be the agents of social and moral reform and argued that girls should also be educated. She established schools for girls, such as one in Cowslip Green in Somerset. However, she was clear that this type of education was not to be equal, and that the education of men and women should look very different. When talking about the reform for female education in France, she remarked that she was astonished that “[girls] run to study philosophy and neglect their families to be present at lectures in anatomy.” Despite this, her efforts to get girls into education set the groundwork for future activists to campaign for female education.[4]
More had also been shocked to discover the level of poverty in the villages surrounding Bristol and Bath and soon worked alongside other reformers to set up schools and support for the poor. While this work is admirable, these schools were designed to reinforce the moral attitudes of the English conservative elite, which More and others, believed were being lost in the atmosphere of worldwide political upheaval. Although, like the differences between male and female education, More believed that the education of the rich and poor should not be the same, and should maintain the hierarchies of class. Again, while her reasonings for getting more people in education are problematic by modern standards, her work set a foundation for more progressive change, with many primary schools around the Bristol area are named after Hannah More today.
In Village Politics, More stated that “the woman is below her husband, and the children are below their mother, and the servant is below his master” as God intended. Hannah More was not a feminist in modern-day terms, but she was a prominent public figure, who devoted herself to improving conditions for the poor, and argued that while men and women were not equal, women played a vital practical and intellectual role in late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century England.
Ultimately, More was a fascinating and pioneering character. While it is easy to criticise her approach to female equality, More should not only be remembered as an advocate for the poor and a champion of female education, but as one of Bristol’s forceful intellectual voices on the Abolition of the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans.[5]
[1] Annick Cossic, Hannah More: A woman of letters (2022) < https://blog.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hannah-more-a-woman-of-letters/> [accessed 3 October 2024]
[2] Kerri Andrews and Sue Edney, ‘Introduction: Hannah More in Context’, in Hannah More in Context, ed. by Kerri Andrews and Sue Endey (New York: Routledge), pp. 1-13.
[3] Anne Scott, Hannah More: The First Victorian (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).
[4] M. J. Crossley Evans, Hannah More, (Bristol: Bristol Branch of the Historical Association, 1999).
[5] Scott, p. 146.