Hannah More

1745-1833

Was an English religious writer and philanthropist, remembered as a poet and playwright in the circle of Johnson, Reynolds and Garrick, as a writer on moral and religious subjects, and as a practical philanthropist. Born in Bristol, she taught at a school established there by her father and began writing plays. She became involved with the London literary elite as a leading Bluestocking member. Her plays and poetry became more evangelical and she joined a group campaigning against the slave trade. In the 1790s she wrote several Cheap Repository Tracts on moral, religious and political topics, for distribution to the literate poor. Meanwhile, she did increasing philanthropic work in the Mendip area, encouraged by William Wilberforce. In response to the French Revolution and to the writings of Thomas Paine, More produced her Cheap Repository Tracts, which from 1795 to 1798 were produced at the rate of three a month. The Tracts were a phenomenal success, selling 300,000 copies between March and April 1795, 700,000 by July 1795, and over two million by March 1796. They taught the poor in rhetoric of most ingenious homeliness to rely upon the 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 of these is The Shepherd of Salisbury Plain, describing a family of phenomenal frugality and contentment. This was translated into several languages.