Hannah Lightbody is one of the forgotten heroines of 18th century England. An early champion of education and welfare reform for the poor, her life - by its very nature- made great strides for the rights of women in British society.
Born in Liverpool on the 21st July 1766 to a well to-do family, the daughter of Adam Lightbody, a Unitarian cotton merchant from Liverpool with land in Garston and Stanley Docks and premises on Dale Street. In 1786 as a young woman growing up in Liverpool with her two brothers, she had been orphaned aged eleven when her father died and she was away at boarding school in Oswestry. The family were left as wealthy independent women and in 1782 it was felt that Hannah would benefit from further education in London. She was proving to be a lover of learning and a great reader of books, indeed quite an intellectual. Mother and daughter moved to London for three years where Hannah studied Maths, Latin, History, French, German and Philosophy before returning to Liverpool at the age of 18. Her return found Hannah a well rounded, confident young woman of twenty with a strong sense of social injustice, ready to embark on the next phase of her life in the fastest expanding city in the country. A free thinking, liberal woman who was years ahead of her time, her work would involve pursuing the rights of women and the abolition of the slave trade pre-dating the suffragette movement by almost a hundred years. Shunning advice to become ‘less bookish’ by her older mentors (if she wanted to get a husband), Hannah would participate in debates, lectures and other aspects of Liverpool’s cultural life and would take long walks and talks with friends, one in particular that remained close throughout her life, Hannah Rathbone of Toxteth Park. In order to entertain more widely they moved to a larger house in Bold Street.
In January 1787 Liverpool was rocked by campaigns to abolish the slave trade and Hannah’s friends were among the tiny minority who dared to voice their opposition to the trade. Hannah at this time was on the verge of becoming a young woman of means, inheriting money and land from her father on her 21st birthday. Although from a provincial background, she was very much at home in the lively social and cultural life of Liverpool and Manchester in the late 18th century. Intellectual activities, plays, dances, concerts, and lectures are all mentioned in her diary. Aged twenty one she fell in love and married a powerful Manchester textile merchant, Samuel Greg, who had inherited his uncle’s textile business when he was only 22. To guarantee a supply of cotton yarn, he had decided to build his own textile mill and chose the deep, wooded Bollin valley near Styal Village, Cheshire, as the site of his first mill. Hannah’s dowry of £10,000 was invested in this Quarry Bank Mill where she influenced his business practices and they had Quarry Bank House built right next door to his beloved mill where they eventually lived. Although he was reliable and trustworthy it must have been difficult for Hannah to reconcile that he had also inherited two slave plantations. Her non-conformist, humanitarian views often clashed with her husband, as she sympathised with the plight of workers at their manufacturing site. Hannah would introduce education, healthcare and music to workers at the mill, before campaigning for the adoption of her practices nationwide to become the driving force behind welfare and educational reform. She organised education for the apprentices, worked as a nurse alongside the factory doctor and tried to improve the diets of the mill families.
Born in Liverpool on the 21st July 1766 to a well to-do family, the daughter of Adam Lightbody, a Unitarian cotton merchant from Liverpool with land in Garston and Stanley Docks and premises on Dale Street. In 1786 as a young woman growing up in Liverpool with her two brothers, she had been orphaned aged eleven when her father died and she was away at boarding school in Oswestry. The family were left as wealthy independent women and in 1782 it was felt that Hannah would benefit from further education in London. She was proving to be a lover of learning and a great reader of books, indeed quite an intellectual. Mother and daughter moved to London for three years where Hannah studied Maths, Latin, History, French, German and Philosophy before returning to Liverpool at the age of 18. Her return found Hannah a well rounded, confident young woman of twenty with a strong sense of social injustice, ready to embark on the next phase of her life in the fastest expanding city in the country. A free thinking, liberal woman who was years ahead of her time, her work would involve pursuing the rights of women and the abolition of the slave trade pre-dating the suffragette movement by almost a hundred years. Shunning advice to become ‘less bookish’ by her older mentors (if she wanted to get a husband), Hannah would participate in debates, lectures and other aspects of Liverpool’s cultural life and would take long walks and talks with friends, one in particular that remained close throughout her life, Hannah Rathbone of Toxteth Park. In order to entertain more widely they moved to a larger house in Bold Street.
In January 1787 Liverpool was rocked by campaigns to abolish the slave trade and Hannah’s friends were among the tiny minority who dared to voice their opposition to the trade. Hannah at this time was on the verge of becoming a young woman of means, inheriting money and land from her father on her 21st birthday. Although from a provincial background, she was very much at home in the lively social and cultural life of Liverpool and Manchester in the late 18th century. Intellectual activities, plays, dances, concerts, and lectures are all mentioned in her diary. Aged twenty one she fell in love and married a powerful Manchester textile merchant, Samuel Greg, who had inherited his uncle’s textile business when he was only 22. To guarantee a supply of cotton yarn, he had decided to build his own textile mill and chose the deep, wooded Bollin valley near Styal Village, Cheshire, as the site of his first mill. Hannah’s dowry of £10,000 was invested in this Quarry Bank Mill where she influenced his business practices and they had Quarry Bank House built right next door to his beloved mill where they eventually lived. Although he was reliable and trustworthy it must have been difficult for Hannah to reconcile that he had also inherited two slave plantations. Her non-conformist, humanitarian views often clashed with her husband, as she sympathised with the plight of workers at their manufacturing site. Hannah would introduce education, healthcare and music to workers at the mill, before campaigning for the adoption of her practices nationwide to become the driving force behind welfare and educational reform. She organised education for the apprentices, worked as a nurse alongside the factory doctor and tried to improve the diets of the mill families.
In Liverpool the Lightbody family moved in liberal, Nonconformist circles, and numbered among their friends important figures in Liverpool’s history, including William Roscoe and William Rathbone. As a well educated and highly intelligent young woman she also had a wide circle of literary and artistic friends and attended discussion groups with men of such power and in 1788 attended a celebrated anti-slavery sermon by the Reverend John Yates.
There is little evidence that Samuel was interested in any of the cultural or social aspects of life which Hannah so cherished – and she finds her married status unbearably restrictive at first, and household management a real challenge. By the time Hannah was 34 she had 10 children and missed the increasingly elegant and cultured world of Liverpool with the grimy centre of Manchester. It’s then that she turned her attention to the pauper children in the mill factories. Her passion for education meant she started teaching the children and introduced thinking, music and better diets for the mill families. Hannah and her children continued to be involved with the activities in the local village of Styal, having earlier set up a Sick Club for Women in 1817 and a Female Society in 1827 and she visited the poor and distressed when at Quarry Bank, as she continued to care for her own children and those at the Mill too.
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| Bessy |
Hannah remained true to her Unitarian faith until her death in 1828 at the age of 61. Samuel had come to rely on Hannah by that time and soon handed over control of the Mill to his second son Robert. Thomas his eldest was lazy and something of a failure in business terms. Samuel died six years later being bereft without Hannah.
Hannah would have been proud of her children though, with Bessy, in particular, having empathy for the working class and roles for women. Bessy inherited her mother’s zeal for education and social reform. She married the son of Hannah’s friend William Rathbone IV; William Rathbone V who became a leading liberal politician in the mid-19th century. Bessy herself became an incredibly important social reformer in Liverpool. She immersed herself in charitable work, helping in prisons, education in Liverpool and poor relief. Bessy played a considerable part in reducing the spread of the cholera epidemic in Liverpool in 1832, working alongside Kitty Wilkinson, who happened to have been a protegĂ© of her grandmother, (Hannah’s mother), Elizabeth Lightbody, who, as part of her charity work for the poor, had taught Kitty how to read and write. Both Hannah and Bessy had sought to change the circumstances of those worse off than they, using education as their vehicle for social and moral reform.
Hannah would have been proud of her children though, with Bessy, in particular, having empathy for the working class and roles for women. Bessy inherited her mother’s zeal for education and social reform. She married the son of Hannah’s friend William Rathbone IV; William Rathbone V who became a leading liberal politician in the mid-19th century. Bessy herself became an incredibly important social reformer in Liverpool. She immersed herself in charitable work, helping in prisons, education in Liverpool and poor relief. Bessy played a considerable part in reducing the spread of the cholera epidemic in Liverpool in 1832, working alongside Kitty Wilkinson, who happened to have been a protegĂ© of her grandmother, (Hannah’s mother), Elizabeth Lightbody, who, as part of her charity work for the poor, had taught Kitty how to read and write. Both Hannah and Bessy had sought to change the circumstances of those worse off than they, using education as their vehicle for social and moral reform.
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