An Exploration and Comparison of Philanthropic Lives
B.F.
Background Information on Maria Hackett:
Within the context of William Upcott’s album, is a collection of historical eminent women who although lead different lives, have reached all become to be known as eminent today. Among them is Maria Hackett, who lived her life as a philanthropist by helping better the lives of the choristers within the choirs of England. Hackett was regarded as the “Chorister’s Friend” for her life efforts in serving the church and her dedication in looking after the boys in its choirs (Gatens). Now, within Upcott’s album, there are multiple other philanthropists who took different journey’s in their lives who also have become regarded as eminent. Similar to Hackett, are Elizabeth Fry and Sarah Trimmer, who both shared a religious influence in their philanthropic work. What this essay aims to explore is the lives of these philanthropists alongside Maria Hackett and compare the issues they chose to address in life, the methods they used to approach them, and how they became known as eminent.
A Look At Sarah Trimmer:
To begin, Sarah Trimmer in her life was an author and educationist, who began her philanthropy with the domestic teaching of her own family, namely in being responsible for providing education for her own children (Schnorrenberg). After this point, in the 1780’s Trimmer moved to educating and helping those outside of her family by opening a Sunday school in 1786, as well as began publishing educational material only 2 years later (Schnorrenberg). This fact shares qualities to Maria Hackett’s beginning of philanthropy as she also began her work starting from her family (Gatens). To be specific, it was when Hackett had first moved to enroll her cousin Wintle as a chorister, she realized of their poor conditions and treatment, leading her to take action to better them (Gatens). She did this by writing letters to church officials and researching until her efforts finally succeeded in diverting funds back to the choristers’ care (Gatens). After gaining the choristers’ proper education, housing, and care they were entitled to, she also began her regular visits (Gatens). However, a key difference between the two philanthropists comes from the next steps in their philanthropic careers. To start, while Trimmer did have her Sunday school, she eventually expanded herself past only religious educational training by opening a charity school for girls (Schnorrenberg). This had the purpose to educate them into becoming teachers as well as in domestic service and relevant trades (Schnorrenberg). Beyond this, in order to reach out to the public more, specifically in parents teaching their children in evangelical ways, she focused on writing her books to properly equip them with teaching material (Schnorrenberg). This was because Trimmer’s view for children and education was that they should be taught properly by adults on not just morals and religion, but also the basic skill sets to read and write (Schnorrenberg). Unlike Trimmer, in the case of Maria Hackett, she did not so much as expand to the general public for her philanthropy, as while she did write, the main focus of her acts seems to be about the choristers’ and her closeness to them (Gatens). This is best shown as Hackett spent the majority of her life working to better the choristers living conditions, making her rounds around England every 4 years (Gatens). In her life she was known to be a caring person who went as far as to note the names of all of the boys in each cathedral’s choir that she met and brought them gifts when she visited (Gatens). So, while both Trimmer and Hackett share factors in their philanthropy from their initial motivations to using religion and overseeing the young, they differ in their life expansion and the main focuses of what they aimed to support and the societal scopes of their acts.
Alongside Elizabeth Fry:
In close similarity, there is Elizabeth Fry, who although lived a significantly different philanthropic career from Hackett, held similar values. As some background information on Elizabeth Fry, her parents were descendents of Quakers and while her siblings took different directions, Fry embraced religion (Haan). This shows up within aspects of her work as for one example, with her work at the Newgate prison in taking up with how the inmates were treated, it is said her views were religiously inspired by Quaker tradition (Haan). Thus, within this aspect of Fry’s life, she shares this quality with Hackett, with religion shaping how they performed their philanthropic acts and how the issues came about to their interest and being the centre of their lives (Gatens; Haan). The differences of course arise in what they actually directed their concern towards. Even more, the two women showed a similar tenacity and dedication within their work as both have been reported to have visited the focuses of their reform often to oversee the changes. Further than this, both women also experienced a hardship caused by a lack of financial’s in their lives and yet persevered nonetheless (Gatens; Haan) For Fry, this occurred in 1828 when her husband had gone bankrupt, but through the support of her brothers, was able to continue her work (Haan). With Hackett, this was tamer as while she was challenging the church in a lawsuit, she realized the costs were too high and had to withdraw (Gatens). As an aspect of their personal lives, Fry who married was said to have been supported by her husband Joseph Fry, while Hackett who remained unmarried was instead supported by her family in her philanthropic work (Gatens; Haan). Moving on, another key difference was in the type of challenges they faced in how they worked to reform their objectives. For instance, Fry had to work more externally to completely reform the prison systems by presenting new ideas and changing the existing views of the public about prisons and prisoners (Haan). What sprung from the changes she incorporated to make people see the prisoners this way, she implemented changes such as giving more supervision, classisfications amongst the prisoner’s and paid employment (Haan). These ideas are what allowed people to see them as redeemable people who could change from their time in prison rather than those who were simply punished (Haan). For Hackett, while she was still facing the challenges against the church, was instead fighting a more internal battle of the system to ensure the choristers’ were taken care of in the way they were entitled to (Gatens). What also arises from this is that Hackett generated a much more personal connection with those within her cause. This is best shown as that because Hackett’s interests all remained scoped within the context of the choristers’ and the church received a cenotaph in her honour that was funded by the choristers’ and placed within her favourite cathedral at St. Paul’s (Gatens). Sadly, for Fry who did good in the world and spread her philanthropy more widely by founding schools for girls, doing community work such as distributing food and clothing, and of course her work to reform the prison system, inspired others even past her death, also gained an opposition/critics to her work who would say her approaches were old-fashioned due to her religion (Haan). As described above, both Hackett and Fry who held similar values in religion, shaping how they worked and what they did in life as well as the challenges they faced, showed their differences in the methods they used to approach those challenges and what resulted from them.
Eminence of Different Philanthropists:
To close, it is evident that while both Sarah Trimmer and Elizabeth Fry shared aspects of their motivations that began their philanthropy, in the different paths they took each led to their individual eminence. These women, each in their careers adopted an issue dear to them, whether it came from their family background or personal beliefs and applied themselves to the work in bettering the lives of those within its field. In varying degrees, they also all shared the fact that religion was a large influence on their lives, no matter how wide they decided to spread their help, whether in one community or for the general population. Within their scopes of philanthropy, they each demonstrated their eminence in their reformation of systems, challenging authority, and/or by simply providing help to certain groups. From these women, we can see that while each led a different life, when looked at in specific detail, they are quite similar in that they provided improvements to the qualities of life for those that they reached and maintained the intentions to improve upon systems that looked down on those in society. As shown above, while in the later courses of their lives they all lived differently and received different responses for their work, they have all thoroughly demonstrated that they shared the core values of philanthropy and in earning their title as eminent.
Works Cited:
Gatens, William J. "Hackett, Maria (1783–1874), philanthropist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23. Oxford University Press. Date of access 13 Dec. 2021, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-47467>
Haan, Francisca de. "Fry [née Gurney], Elizabeth (1780–1845), penal reformer and philanthropist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 01. Oxford University Press. Date of access 13 Dec. 2021, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-10208>
Schnorrenberg, Barbara Brandon. "Trimmer [née Kirby], Sarah (1741–1810), author and educationist." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. 23. Oxford University Press. Date of access 13 Dec. 2021, <https://www-oxforddnb-com.proxy.lib.sfu.ca/view/10.1093/ref:odnb/9780198614128.001.0001/odnb-9780198614128-e-27740>
