Miss Hannah More's Biography
Hannah More was born in Gloucestshire, England, in seventeen forty-five. She was the fourth of five daughters born to her father, Jacob More, and mother, Mary Grace More. Jacob was a school master, and his wife was the daughter of a farmer in a nearby village. Jacob lost a significant amount of money due to a lawsuit concerning land ownership in Suffolk, and he moved his family to Bristol, in order to make a small salary teaching in the Free school. Hannah More was raised in tight quarters and on a very restricted income.
In 1758, Hannah's oldest sister, Mary, opened a girls school in Bristol. When the school first opened, Hannah was a pupil of the school. But eventually she became a teacher there. When she was only seventeen, Hannah wrote her first play called The Search after Happiness, and the girls at the school performed it. Hannah became very close with the actor William Powell, during her time at the Theatre Royal Bristol.
When Hannah was twenty-two years old she became engaged to a local land-owner named William Turner. He was a wealthy man who owned a beautiful estate called the Belmont, which is currently owned by the National Trust. After a six year "courting period", Hannah grew tired of waiting and she called off the engagement. As reconciliation, Turner paid her an annuity of £200. Needless to say, Hannah More was always a woman who seemed to know how to get what she wanted.
Belmont House
Due to this annuity, Hannah was able to quit teaching and work only on her writings as she wanted to do all along.
Once in London, Hannah instantly became one of London's elite group. She first met the actor-manager David Garrick, and his wife Eva. Later on, they met Samuel Jackson, Edmund Burke and the Bluestockings, as well as Elizabeth Montague and Elizabeth Carter. Garrick was a great help to Hannah in composing her tragedy, Percy. Sadly, David Garrick passed away in January of 1779 and Hannah consequently lost much of her interest in theatre. After the tragic failure of her play, The Fatal Falsehood, Hannah completely stopped writing for theatre. Instead of devoting herself to theatre as she once had, Hannah became the companion of the widowed Eva Garrick. This drew her ever closer into the bluestockings, who were a literary group that met every now and then to discuss new literary works. They were comprised of mostly females with an occasional, and highly intelligent, male guest. She wrote a poem called The Bas Bleu, which was said to portray her groups morals and interests.
Between 1785 and 1787, Hannah had a life transition once again. When the relationship with her former protégé, Ann Yearsly who was known as "The Milk Woman", ended, More became increasingly interested in religion. This was a transition that changed her life, and cannot be assigned an exact date as to its occurance. Her newest friends became John Newton, an Evangelical clergyman as well as a hymn writer, and a member of Parliament whose name was William Wilberforce. In 1788, during the first parliamentary debate on slave trade, Hannah published her poem, Slavery. This poem had an extremely religious feeling, where Hannah discussed the positive and negative things about her religion.
Hannah More went on to compose many other writings consisting mainly of religious writings and writings to help guide young women in the trials and tribulations of life. Hannah More spent her later years in retirement, and contributed in national debates, as well as writing works about Evangelical piety. Hannah stayed active in the anti-slavery movement, and was considered a role model for many Evangelical women to come. From what I have gathered about Hannah More, I believe she had mostly good intentions at heart. She seemed like she may have been riding a high horse, and although she seemed a bit stubborn, Hannah did contribute to many well founded charities.