Hannah More, Writer and Philanthropist

Hannah More, writer and philanthropist, was born in Fishponds, Bristol on 2^nd February 1745.  Her father Joseph More was a schoolmaster and she had four sisters.   She was precocious and quick witted and her passion for learning was quickly recognised by her parents and older sisters, who all helped to educate her.  Joseph More ensured that all his daughters were educated, so that they would be able to earn a living for themselves by running a boarding school for girls.   He set up a school in Bristol for Hannah’s older sisters Mary and Elizabeth to run when Hannah was 12 years old and she attended the school.  By her late teens Hannah was teaching at the school.

Hannah started writing stories and poetry at an early age.  In 1762 her first significant work, a pastoral drama poem entitled The Search after Happiness, was published in Bristol.  In it she expressed her views on the education of women and their role in society.  It was republished in London in 1773 and had sold over 10,000 copies by the mid-1780s.

In 1767 William Turner of Belmont House at Wraxall proposed marriage to Hannah and she accepted.  However he was 20 years older than her and he postponed their wedding three times. In 1773 Hannah broke off their engagement and, after suffering a nervous breakdown as a result, resolved never to marry.  She turned down several subsequent marriage proposals. Feeling guilty William Turner persuaded her to accept an annuity of £200, which made her financially secure and independent.

In 1773 Hannah and her sisters Sarah and Martha visited London for the first time.  She was introduced to many notable people, including the artist Joshua Reynolds, the actor and playwright David Garrick and the writer Dr Samuel Johnson.  Her visits to London became annual events and on her second visit she was invited to join the Bluestocking circle, which was a group of intellectual women with literary interests. David Garrick put on Hannah’s first play The Inflexible Captive at the Theatre Royal in bath in April 1775.  Her second play Percy was performed in Covent Garden in London in 1777.  For various reasons Hannah became disillusioned with the literary world after 1779.

Hannah’s Christian faith became deeper in the 1780s and she became involved in the campaign to abolish slavery.  In 1784 she moved to a cottage at Cowslip Green near Wrington.  Hannah had many books and tracts published on a variety of moral issues.  She became friendly with anti-slavery campaigner William Wilberforce and he encouraged her and her sisters to set up schools to educate the children of poor people. 

Hannah and Martha’s first school was in Cheddar and it opened in 1789.  The children were taught to read and learned about the Bible and the Christian faith.  Hannah didn’t want them to be taught to write because she thought this would encourage them to be dissatisfied with their lowly situation.  The school was a success and so the sisters owned a second one in Shipham.  This was followed by another 10 in villages around the Mendips, including Blagdon, Yatton, Sandford, Congresbury, Banwell and Nailsea over the following decade. They also started evening classes for adults, weekday classes for girls to learn how to sew, knit, and spin, and a number of women's friendly societies, which emphasised the virtues of cleanliness, decency and Christian behaviour. 

In 1799 Hannah’s definitive two volume work on the subject of women’s education,         Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education was published. All five More sisters moved to a large house called Barley Wood on the north east edge of Wrington in 1801.

Hannah’s schools encountered opposition from local landowners and farmers who did not want their labourers to be educated.  She was also opposed by some local clergymen, who accused her of encouraging Methodism at Blagdon School in 1800.  Hannah defended herself well but closed Blagdon School in order to protect the reputation of her other schools.

Hannah suffered from ill health for the last 20 years of her life and one by one her beloved sisters died.  In 1828 her friends persuaded her to move to Clifton in Bristol, so they could look after her.  Hannah died on 7th September 1733 aged 88 in Clifton and was buried with her sisters in All Saints’ Churchyard in Wrington.

Bust of Hannah More in the porch of All Saints' Parish Church, Wrington 

Grave of Hannah More and her 4 sisters in the churchyard at Wrington

All Saints' Church, Wrington

Tithe Barn, Nailsea

This building housed Hannah More’s school for nearly 200 years from 1789

Hannah More’s name lives on today in three local street names – Hannah More Road in Nailsea and Hannah More Close in Wrington and in Cheddar.  There also still two schools named after her – Hannah More Primary School in St Philips, Bristol and Hannah More Infant School in Nailsea.

Hannah More Road, Nailsea

Hannah More Close, Wrington

Poets' Walk, Clevedon

The town of Clevedon has connections to two of England’s best known poets. Poets’ Walk is a popular footpath which runs along the coast and around Wain’s Hill and Church Hill at the southern end of Clevedon.  The walk is said to have inspired poets such as Alfred Tennyson, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Makepeace Thackeray, who visited the town.  The formal path which exists today was constructed in 1929. Poets’ Walk was designated as a Local Nature Reserve in 1993.

Poets' Walk signpost

Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk

Poets' Walk

The Sugar Lookout is a feature on Poets’ Walk. It was built by Ferdinand Beeston in around 1835.  It is said to have been used in the mid-19^th century by a family of sugar importers called Finzel to look out for ships sailing up the Bristol Channel, which were carrying sugar from the West Indies.  It later fell into ruin but has recently been restored.

Sugar Lookout overlooking the Bristol Channel

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and his wife Sarah spent the first few months of their married life in a cottage on Old Church Road in Clevedon in 1795.

Coleridge Cottage, Old Church Road, Clevedon

In the mid-18^th century the author William Makepeace Thackeray was a frequent visitor of the Elton Family, who lived at Clevedon Court.  He is best known as a novelist but he did also write some poetry.

Alfred Tennyson had a close friend at Cambridge University called Arthur Hallam.  Arthur’s mother was a member of the Elton family of Clevedon Court.  Arthur, who was a poet and essayist, was engaged to marry Tennyson’s sister Emily but he died suddenly in Vienna in 1833 at the age of 22.  His body was brought back to England and he was buried in the family vault at St Andrew’s Church in Clevedon.  In 1850 Tennyson wrote a poem called In Memorium in tribute to his friend.  In the same year he made his first visit to Clevedon.  The house on Old Church Road in Clevedon, where he is said to have stayed, is called Tennyson House.   A nearby road is called Tennyson Avenue.

Tennyson House, Old Church Road

Tennyson Avenue, Clevedon

St Andrew's Church, Clevedon

Thomas Poole of Nether Stowey

Thomas Poole was born in Nether Stowey on 14th November 1766.  His father Thomas was a tanner and farmer.  He wanted his son to carry on his tanning business when he died, so he denied him a proper education and sent him to work as an apprentice in the tanyard from an early age.  Thomas junior educated himself and taught himself Latin and French.  In 1791 he represented the west country at a tanners meeting in London and was elected by them to speak to William Pitt about the distressed state of the tanning industry.  He returned from London as a supporter of the French Revolution. 

In 1793 Poole established the Nether Stowey Book Society. The members of the group met at The Globe Inn and bought books and exchanged books.

Thomas Poole was introduced to Samuel Taylor Coleridge for the first time in August 1794 by his relative Henry Poole of Stogursey, who brought him to Thomas's house in Castle Street.  Coleridge was on a walking tour of Somerset with the poet Robert Southey.  Thomas and Coleridge became great friends.

In 1795 there was hardship in Nether Stowey when the price of wheat increased rapidly due to the war with France.  Poole, his mother and aunt created new recipes for cheaper loaves of bread e.g. using a mixture of wheat, barley, beans and potatoes or turnips.  In 1796 Poole built a new barkhouse in Tanyard Lane.

Coleridge asked Poole to find him a house in Nether Stowey and on 1st January 1797 he moved into a house on Lime Street in Nether Stowey with his wife Sara and their baby son Hartley. In July 1797 Poole arranged for William and Dorothy Wordsworth to rent Alfoxton House on the edge of Holford.   Also in 1797 Poole met the Staffordshire potters Josiah and Tom Wedgwood and he and Josiah became lifelong friends.  Through his friendship with Coleridge and Wordsworth, Poole met several other influential people of his day: the essayist and poet Charles Lamb; the radical speaker, writer, poet, painter and political reformer John Thelwell; the essayist, critic and philosopher William Hazlitt.

Poole met the scientist and inventor of the miners' safety lamp, Humphry Davy in 1799 and Davy later became a regular visitor to Nether Stowey.

Poole went on a tour of Europe in 1802.  In Paris he met the revolutionary and writer Thomas Paine (author of The Rights of Man) and was also presented to Napoleon Bonaparte. In the same year he met the civil servant John Rickman in London and in 1804 he compiled statistics for Rickman that were to be used to implement the poor laws.

In 1806 Poole founded the Nether Stowey Female Friendly Society.  Members paid what they could afford and in return they received financial support when they were sick, gave birth, were widowed or in their old age. Poole met the essayist Thomas de Quincey in 1807.

In 1807 Thomas tried unsuccessfully to reopen the Dodington copper mine, which had closed down in 1891.  He tried again in 1816 and built two new engine houses but the mine closed for the last time in 1821.

Poole donated a piece of land and paid for the building of a village school in Nether Stowey in 1812-13.  The school was large enough to educate up to 200 local children.  It was used as a school until 1979 when a new one was built and the building now houses the public library.

From 1814 until his death, Poole was a justice of the peace for Somerset.  

To encourage local people to save money and give them access to banking services, Thomas founded the Quantock Savings Bank in Lime Street, Nether Stowey in 1817.  The bank was in business until 1884.

Thomas Poole never married.  He lived in a house now called Poole House in Castle Street, Nether Stowey until 1802 when he gave the house to Thomas Ward, who was his partner in the tanning business.  Poole bought another house in St Mary Street, now called The Old House.  He lived there until his death.  He amassed a large library of books. Many people in the Nether Stowey area were suspicious of his radical views.  Although he was a great philanthropist and had many friends, he had a short temper and could sometimes be abrupt and overbearing.

Thomas Poole died of pleurisy in Nether Stowey on 8th September 1837 aged 72.  He was buried in the churchyard of St Mary's Church in the village.

Portrait of Thomas Poole in the Museum of Somerset in Taunton

Poole House in Castle Street, Nether Stowey

The Old House, St Mary Street, Nether Stowey

Quantock Savings Bank, Lime Street, Nether Stowey

Quantock Savings Bank, Lime Street, Nether Stowey

Old School, Nether Stowey (now the public library)

Thomas Poole's gravestone in St Mary's churchyard

Thomas Poole's Memorial inside St Mary's church

Dead Poets

Some of Britain's most famous poets have connections to Somerset:

• Siegfried Sassoon and T.S. Eliot are buried in Somerset. 
• Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth both lived in the county for a few years.
• Alfred Tennyson and William Makepeace Thackeray both visited Clevedon

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1722-1834) was one of the great Romantic poets.  He was born in Ottery St Mary in Devon on 21st October 1772.  Samuel and his wife Sara (nee Fricker) spent the first few months of their married life in a cottage on Old Church Road in Clevedon in 1795. In 1797 they moved to a cottage in Lime Street, Nether Stowey, where they lived for three years.  Samuel went for long walks in the surrounding hills and countryside.  His epic poem, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner is said to have been inspired by Watchet Harbour. While he was writing Kubhla Khan in a laudanum induced haze, he was famously disturbed by "a man from Porlock."  Frost at Midnight describes the interior of the house at Nether Stowey.  In 1800 the Coleridges moved to Keswick in the Lake District.

Coleridge Cottage in Nether Stowey is now owned by the National Trust and it is open to the public.

Cottage on Old Church Road, Clevedon where the Coleridges stayed

Coleridge Cottage, Lime Street, Nether Stowey

Plaque on Coleridge Cottage in Lime Street, Nether Stowey

  

Statue of the Ancient Mariner and dead albatross, Watchet Harbour

Plaque on the Unitarian Chapel, Dampiet Street, Bridgwater

Plaque on the Unitarian Chapel, Mary Street, Taunton

Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the albatross from Rime of the Ancient Mariner,

Watchet history mural, Old Mineral Yard, Watchet

In 1795 William Wordsworth met Samuel Taylor Coleridge for the first time in Bristol.  They became good friends and in 1797 William and his wife Dorothy rented Alfoxton House near Holford, which was only three miles away from Nether Stowey where Samuel Taylor Coleridge was living.  Wordsworth and Coleridge went for many walks in the Quantock Hills, along the coast and on Exmoor.  However, due to rumours about some of their radical house guests, the Wordsworth's lease was not renewed after a year and they moved on, first to Germany, before settling at Grasmere in the Lake District in 1799.

Alfoxton House

Alfoxton House

Looking very sad and semi-derelict in January 2019

Siegfried Loraine Sassoon (1886-1967) was one of the leading First World War poets.  He was born in Kent and educated at Cambridge University.  In 1914 he joined the Sussex Yeomanry and in 1915 he was posted to France. He was wounded in April 1917 and while he was convalescing at Craiglockhart War Hospital near Edinburgh he met Wilfred Owen.  Sassoon returned to active duty in 1918, first in Palestine and then in May he returned to France.  In July 1918 he was wounded in the head and that was the end of his military service.  He wrote angry but compassionate poems about the First World War. Some of his best war poems were published in Counter-Attack and Other Poems in 1918.  

After the war Sassoon wrote more poetry, but also prose and autobiographies.  In 1957 he became a Catholic.  He died on 1st September 1967 at his home in Heytesbury near Warminster in Wiltshire. He was buried in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church in Mells, close to the grave of the Roman Catholic priest Father Ronald Knox, who he greatly admired.

Siegfried Sassoon's grave in the churchyard of St Andrew's Church, Mells

St Andrew's Church, Mells

Thomas Stearns Eliot (1888-1965) was born in St Louis Missouri but he moved to England in 1917 and became a British citizen in 1927.  One of his Eliot ancestors had lived in East Coker before immigrating to America in the 1660s.

T.S. Eliot's best known poetic works include The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, The Waste Land, Ash Wednesday, The Hollow Men, Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats and Four Quartets.  Four Quartets is a set of four long poems, the second of which is entitled East Coker.  He also wrote several plays and essays.

T.S. Eliot died of emphysema at his home in London on 4th January 1965.  At his request his ashes were interred at St Michael's Church, East Coker.  There is a commemorative plaque to him on the wall of the church, which quotes some lines from Four Quartets: "In my beginning is my end" and "In my end is my beginning."

 

T.S. Eliot's memorial plaque in St Michael's Church, East Coker

T.S. Eliot's memorial plaque in St Michael's Church, East Coker

St Michael's Church, East Coker

In the mid-18^th century the author William Makepeace Thackeray was a frequent visitor of the Elton Family, who lived at Clevedon Court.  He is best known as a novelist but he did also write some poetry.

Alfred Tennyson had a close friend at Cambridge University called Arthur Hallam.  Arthur’s mother was a member of the Elton family of Clevedon Court.  Arthur, who was a poet and essayist, was engaged to marry Tennyson’s sister Emily but he died suddenly in Vienna in 1833 at the age of 22.  His body was brought back to England and he was buried in the family vault at St Andrew’s Church in Clevedon.  In 1850 Tennyson wrote a poem called In Memorium in tribute to his friend.  In the same year he made his first visit to Clevedon.  The house on Old Church Road in Clevedon, where he is said to have stayed, is called Tennyson House.   A nearby road is called Tennyson Avenue.

Tennyson House, Old Church Road, Clevedon

Tennyson Avenue, Clevedon