Louisa Gurney Hoare
Encyclopedia
Early life
Louisa Gurney, born on 25 September 1784, was the seventh of the eleven children of John Gurney (1749–1809) of Earlham Hall near NorwichNorwich
Norwich is a city in England. It is the regional administrative centre and county town of Norfolk. During the 11th century, Norwich was the largest city in England after London, and one of the most important places in the kingdom...
, a Quaker, and of Catherine Bell (1754–1792). Her father inherited ownership of Gurney's Bank in Norwich. Her siblings included Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry
Elizabeth Fry , née Gurney, was an English prison reformer, social reformer and, as a Quaker, a Christian philanthropist...
, prison reformer, Joseph John Gurney
Joseph John Gurney
Joseph John Gurney was a banker in Norwich, England and an evangelical Minister of the Religious Society of Friends , whose views and actions led, ultimately, to a schism among American Quakers.-Biography:...
((1788–1847) and Samuel Gurney
Samuel Gurney
Samuel Gurney was an English banker and philanthropist.He should not be confused with his second son, Samuel , also described as banker and philanthropist, and a Member of Parliament.-Early years and marriage:...
(1786–1856), philanthropists, and Daniel Gurney
Daniel Gurney
Daniel Gurney , was an English banker and antiquary.Gurney was born at Earlham Hall, near Norwich, on 9 March 1791. He was youngest son of John Gurney of Earlham, Norfolk, and brother of Elizabeth Fry, the philanthropist, Louisa Gurney Hoare, the writer on education, and Joseph John Gurney and...
(1791–1880), banker and antiquary. They were educated privately, at first by their mother and then by Catherine Bell Gurney, the eldest sister, according to her mother's precepts. The regimen of play, adult conversation and free use of Earlham library was at variance with the Quaker traditions of that period. They were permitted to explore other religions and had both Unitarian and Roman Catholic friends, partly through the Norwich school to which Joseph John was sent, and where his sisters also attended some lessons.
All the children were encouraged to keep diaries or "journals of conscience". Louisa's was the most avidly kept. It recorded adolescent enthusiasms for nature, music, and politics, and her aversion to the duller aspects of Quaker observance, and to any unjust treatment of herself or her brothers and sisters. She stated that she was disgusted when a twelve-year-old cousin kissed her, but she later married him: the banker Samuel Hoare
Samuel Hoare
Samuel John Gurney Hoare, 1st Viscount Templewood GCSI, GBE, CMG, PC , more commonly known as Sir Samuel Hoare, was a senior British Conservative politician who served in various Cabinet posts in the Conservative and National governments of the 1920s and 1930s...
(1783–1847) of Hampstead
Hampstead
Hampstead is an area of London, England, north-west of Charing Cross. Part of the London Borough of Camden in Inner London, it is known for its intellectual, liberal, artistic, musical and literary associations and for Hampstead Heath, a large, hilly expanse of parkland...
, on 24 December 1806.
The marriage was strongly supported by her father-in-law, also Samuel Hoare. According to her sister-in-law, "I know of no event which gave my father more pleasure than the engagement of his son to the daughter of his old friend. With perfect confidence in her principles, and a persuasion that she would make my brother happy, he was pleased with her being, like my mother, a Norfolk woman, and interested himself much in procuring for them an house at Hampstead that they might be established near him." Husband and wife were both baptised into the Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
in 1812.
Causes and ideas
Louisa came to be considered by her family as the most talented of the brothers and sisters. She contributed to several of their causes: the anti-slavery campaign of her brother-in-law Sir Thomas Fowell BuxtonThomas Fowell Buxton
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and social reformer....
, and the prison reform movement of her sister Elizabeth Fry and her own husband. She was a founder of the Ladies' Society for Promoting Education in the West Indies (1825), which was supported by other members of the Hoare, Gurney, Buxton and Ricardo families.
However, her main concern became education. Her Hints for the Improvement of Early Education and Nursery Discipline (1819) was originally written for the nursemaid to the first of her six children. It continued to sell well for eighty years. Her experience was enriched family tradition and by the influences of 18th and 19th century authorities as such as John Locke
John Locke
John Locke FRS , widely known as the Father of Liberalism, was an English philosopher and physician regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers. Considered one of the first of the British empiricists, following the tradition of Francis Bacon, he is equally important to social...
, François Fénelon
François Fénelon
François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, more commonly known as François Fénelon , was a French Roman Catholic archbishop, theologian, poet and writer...
, John Foster
John Foster (essayist)
John Foster was an English essayist, son of a weaver, born in the parish of Halifax, Yorkshire, and educated for the ministry at the Baptist college in Bristol. After serving as a minister for several years, he chose to devote himself to literature. He contributed nearly 200 articles to the...
, Thomas Babington
Thomas Babington
Thomas Babington was an English philanthropist and politician. He was a member of the Clapham Sect, alongside more famous abolitionists such as William Wilberforce and Hannah More...
, and Philip Doddridge
Philip Doddridge
Philip Doddridge DD was an English Nonconformist leader, educator, and hymnwriter.-Early life:...
, as well as contemporaries such as Sarah Trimmer
Sarah Trimmer
Sarah Trimmer was a noted writer and critic of British children's literature in the eighteenth century...
and Hannah More
Hannah More
Hannah More was an English religious writer, and philanthropist. She can be said to have made three reputations in the course of her long life: 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...
.
Hoare's second book, Friendly Advice on the Management and Education of Children, Addressed to Parents of the Middle and Labouring Classes of Society (1824), was intended as a supplement to school. Its that discipline should "preserve children from evil, not from childishness" foreshadows affirmative views of childhood that would gain strength in the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
. Parents, she said, should respect their children, and treat them justly, understanding that they, too, had rights. Most importantly, parents should set a good example. Then, when their children imitated their speech and actions (as children do), they would not feel ashamed. Her final book was Letters from a Work-House Boy (1826). She died in Hampstead on 6 December 1836.