Philanthropy and Empire: Jonas Hanway and the Infant Poor of London

Abstract

JONAS HANWAY, the most indefatigable and effective of eighteenth*century English philanthropists, was not himself wealthy, nor was he well-connected by birth, although a few members of the family achieved modest success as officers in the navy or army, or as military contractors. Born in Portsmouth in 1712, Hanway spent his youth in rural Hampshire. From the age of sixteen to thirty-nine he was a merchant who lived almost entirely abroad-twelve years at the English Factory in Lisbon, the better part of a year in northern Persia, and over five years in Saint Petersburg. On his return in 1750, he settled in London, living with his married half sister in the Strand and conducting his modest business ventures as a Russia Company merchant from John's Coffee House, just east of the Royal Exchange. In 1753 he published at his own expense a book based on his travels in Russia and Persia, which brought him some reputation, Samuel Johnson conceded.' Three years later Hanway began what became for him a new career as an organizer and promoter of asso,ciated philanthropies. For the next thirty years, until his death in 1786, he served on boards of governors and subscription committees, wrote books and pamphlets, and importuned the wealthy and powerful on behalf of one or another form of social amelioration. A full biography of Hanway has yet to be written.2 This essay ex-