Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More--Poet, Reformer, Abolitionist by Karen Swallow Prior

Author:Karen Swallow Prior
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Non-Fiction, Biography, History
ISBN: 9780718021917
Publisher: Thomas Nelson
Published: 2014-10-28T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 11

AN AMPLE TABLE

IN THE SOUTHWEST OF LONDON, JUST A FEW MILES FROM ST. MARY Woolnoth where More went to hear John Newton preach, sits the historic Clapham district. During More’s lifetime, Clapham was a rural village. In 1776, a new place of worship, Holy Trinity Church, opened there in a building erected as a replacement for the old, decaying parish church nearby that dated from the medieval period.1 At that time, despite being only four miles from London Bridge, Clapham still reflected the agrarian setting of the county of Surrey in which it sat.2 Because of its proximity to the city, Clapham was quickly becoming an outpost for the well-to-do who were building large, elaborate homes there. In those days, people attended church in their own communities, or parishes, so Holy Trinity quickly became a church for those who were rich and fashionable—but not necessarily devout. However, the evangelical movement that had arisen from the revival sparked earlier in the century by John and Charles Wesley and George Whitefield was bringing change, first to the laboring masses through Wesley and Whitefield’s open-air preaching and gradually upward to the higher classes.

In 1792, Henry Thornton, a cousin of Wilberforce, purchased Battersea Rise, a three-story, Queen Anne–style home named after the part of Clapham in which it was located.3 Henry Thornton, like Wilberforce, was a member of Parliament and, also like Wilberforce, became so at a young age. He started out working in trade but turned to banking, a profession in which he discovered such innate skill that he became one of the most successful and wealthiest bankers in the nation. Wilberforce’s vision to reform their society soon became Thornton’s vision as well.

As holder of the parish land on which Holy Trinity was built, Thornton’s estate held the so-called right of patronage and with it the right to appoint the next curate. The same year he bought Battersea Rise, Thornton offered the curate’s position at Holy Trinity to a fellow evangelical, John Venn. When Venn began to preach there, the congregation grew so monumentally that additions had to be made to the church.4 Some of the rich and empowered in Clapham soon found genuine faith. A circle of these church members then united in their growing commitment to bring the vibrancy of the evangelical Christian faith to every area of life. Clapham—and Battersea Rise within it—became the headquarters for a close-knit group of some of these true believers—believers not only in the Christian faith but also in the idea that serious Christian faith could actually make a difference in the world.

Thornton kept adding to his home, which eventually boasted more than thirty bedrooms and a legendary oval library that served as the meeting room for the community. Dwellings were built on the grounds where other members, including Wilberforce and Hannah More, took up residence for periods of time. The home was part of a great plan of Thornton. “I am in hopes some good may come out of our Clapham system,” he explained.

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