On Hannah More

On Hannah More’s Village Politics ---Madonna Wilt---

I found Hannah More’s Village Politics very entertaining. In group discussion, I mentioned that it read, not only as didactic, but as satire as well. Admittedly, it is quite possible that the satirical nature only appeared when shone through my own cultural lens. In discussion, our group agreed that it was probably very serious in nature, given the educational level of the working class in England during our time period of study. This got me wondering about what sort of reception Hannah More’s work received, in her own time period, so I went back to read our text’s introduction on her.

I learned that her work was indeed political propaganda. More wrote numerous patriotic and political pamphlets with the working classes in mind. Her works were widely distributed in charity schools, churches, labor halls, workhouses and prisons. More agreed with Edmund Burke on the issue of preservation of the classes but felt that basic literacy, through education, could strengthen the lower classes, as well as women, by making them more industrious, clean, pious, etc., and in turn they would become better citizens. Thus, Village Politics came to be known as a “Burke for Beginners.”