Hannah More: Firebrand, Reformer, Poet

By Genevie Roby

An atheistic revolution was brewing in 19th-century England. The rich believed that Christian morality was outdated; the unchurched poor were not acquainted with Christian morality at all. Amid an excess of hedonistic secular works, a strange, anonymous book appeared unlike all the others. The book attacked the wealthy’s excesses by holding up a mirror to the ugliness that lay behind their polite facades. The book sold out in days and incited the wealthy to reconsider their practices. As one of her contemporaries put it, the book, opposing the fashions of the time, itself became fashionable.

Eventually, the anonymous author was found out – Hannah More, a schoolmaster’s daughter-turned-celebrity writer. The warm wit and electric prose gave her away. More was unusual: a firebrand who would befriend preachers and agnostics alike.

Hannah More lived out the ideals of a journalist: becoming the conscience of the rich and fighting to end injustice among the disenfranchised. She understood that it was not enough just to tell the truth – she had to tell the truth winsomely, in a way that resonated with her audience.

Most evangelicals of the time seemed dour, but she had bright eyes, an impish smile, and sparkling enthusiasm. When she expressed her convictions, people listened. She saw that the duty of a Christian was not to flee culture, but to transform it.

“Mischief,” she wrote, “arises not from our living in the world, but from the world living in us; occupying our hearts, and monopolizing our affections.”

Hannah More fought to free slaves, educate and evangelize the unschooled and unchurched poor, and tell the truth about England’s dark underbelly. Her brilliant mind and prolific pen changed her country.

After years of writing plays and poems among London’s elite inner circles, More encountered the writing of John Newton, a preacher and abolitionist. His influence encouraged her to commit herself more wholly to her faith and instigated a shift in her life’s focus into writing for the kingdom of God.

More befriended William Wilberforce and his band of evangelicals seeking to reform England. While Wilberforce fought to end slavery in Parliament, More fought in the public square to change opinions on slavery by circulating pamphlets and poems that exposed the horrors of slavery amongst the lavish Londoners. Her abolitionist poetry garnished international fame and even became instrumental in ending slavery in one English colony.

When More moved to the countryside, she was horrified at the stench and squalor of the neighboring villages, the faces blackened with coal dust, and the total ignorance of God. With Wilberforce’s funding, she started schools to teach the children to read and to catechize them. In an age of rote learning and dull teaching, More captivated the children with stories, merry songs, and even extravagant outdoor feasts that drew thousands of spectators.

After theological controversy struck her schools, More was publicly denounced. Her health collapsed and she was ready to quit writing altogether. But in her fifties, her heart was stirred to write an alternative to the salacious fiction commonly read by the newly literate poor. Like a journalist, she knew that stories held immeasurable power to sway hearts. She wrote morality tales with simple prose, sensational titles, and gripping plotlines. She marketed them with attractive covers and affordable prices. Their instant success paved the way for other high quality fiction that could connect with the laboring class.

By her death, slavery was abolished and, two decades after, around three-quarters of laboring class children were enrolled in one of her schools. Her most compelling tools were her genuine care for others and her good humor, which helped people trust her message.“It is a part of Christianity to convert every natural talent to a religious use,” she said.

[This essay by Genevie Roby won first place in the WJI Essay Competition hosted by WJI Network.]