The Life of Jonas Hanway
The ledger stone of Hanway’s parents in Portsmouth Cathedral
Jonas Hanway was one of a kind ‘Citizen of the World’, starting his early life in Portsmouth, going on to explore far reaches of the world. Later in life founding the Marine Society, Hanway is also credited for popularising the umbrella for gentlemen.
Jonas Hanway’s baptism was registered in Portsmouth, on 2 August 1712. His father Thomas had recently been appointed Agent Victualler to the Navy in Portsmouth, and the family lived comfortably in St George’s Square. Hanway’s mother already had 2 children by an earlier marriage, and a further daughter and three sons (including Jonas) arrived with the second marriage. Sadly Hanway’s father, Thomas, died after a fall from a horse in 1714, and with the loss of his income the family had to move to rural Hampshire, where Jonas attended a small school.
In 1728, aged 16, Hanway went to London to live with his uncle in Oxford Street, where he began training in accounting and other business skills, equipping himself for a career as a merchant. For 12 years from 1729 Jonas Hanway lived and worked at the ‘English Factory’ in Lisbon, Portugal. This was an important business centre, due largely to the volume of British shipping using the port and to Lisbon’s significance as the administrative centre for a vast Empire.
Jonas would have gained valuable business experience there; he was certainly also influenced by Lisbon’s long tradition of philanthropy, dating back to its hospitality to medieval pilgrims, and focussing particularly on the care and nurture of the young. This experience was to bear fruit in Hanway’s own life.
After a failed attempt to find work back in England, Jonas joined the Russia Company, and from St Petersburg volunteered for a journey to Persia. His journey was full of incident, including being held captive on more than one occasion; he wrote about this in the first of his many publications, ‘An Historical Account of the British Trade over the Caspian Sea’ (in 4 volumes).
On his return to England, Hanway continued his business activities on behalf of the Russia Company, working from St John’s Coffee House near the Royal Exchange (a very modern-sounding way of life!). In 1756, along with others from the Russia Company, he founded the Marine Society, intended to encourage men and boys to join the British Navy. By 1757 he was a very involved governor of the Foundling Hospital.
Jonas Hanway. Mezzotint by R. Dunkarton, 1780, after E. Edwards. | Credit Wellcome Collection
Among the societies many philanthropic concerns including the plight of ‘Climbing Boys’, young chimney sweep apprentices, the treatment of venereal diseases, and the lives of poor children at large. He educated how people should wash at least once a week, and change their clothes every eight to ten days.
Hanway wrote and published prolifically all his life, including (just 2 years before his death) ‘Midnight the Signal’, in 2 volumes, condemning the pernicious habit of staying up late; midnight should be the signal to end dancing, music and other amusements, if one wishes to preserve one's health and virtue.
Hanway had a lifelong interest in diet, and (echoing his father’s occupation) in 1762 he was appointed a Commissioner for Victualling the Navy, specifically the Bakehouse and Mills section; his duties brought him to Portsmouth on occasion, where his office was over the Square Tower in the High Street. He built a slaughterhouse next to it and converted an old pier (the ‘Powder Bridge’) into a ‘Beef Stage’, to serve the fleet moored at Spithead.
Hanway is also credited as being the first man to carry his own umbrella around London, at a time when a gentleman would ride in a carriage when it rained, and when managing the umbrella would be the preserve of a servant. Hanway was clearly unconcerned, a descendant later describing his umbrella; “The handle was ebony and all covered with Small Fruits and Flowers. The outside was pale green Silk, and the inside lining was straw coloured Satin’; open it was the size of a small tent, but closed ‘it was all curiously jointed and would fold up to the length of a man’s hand.’
Monument to Jonas Hanway in Westminster Abbey | Credit Wellcome Collection
Jonas Hanway’s mother died in 1755, and was buried alongside her husband in Portsmouth; their ledger stone is at the NE end of the Chapel of St Thomas. Jonas himself died on 5 September 1786, aged 74, and was buried in the crypt of St Mary’s Church, Hanwell, in London; two years later an ornate marble memorial to him, sponsored by the Marine Society, was erected in Westminster Abbey.
Hanway himself wrote his own epitaph, 20 years before his death…
JONAS HANWAY Esqre. who, trusting in that good Providence, which so visibly governs the world, passed through a variety of fortunes with patience.
Living the greatest part of his days in foreign lands, ruled by arbitrary power, he received the deeper impression of the happy constitution of his own country: whilst the persuasive laws contained in the new testament, and the consciousness of his own depravity, softened his heart to a sense of the various wants of his fellow creatures.
READER, enquire no further. THE LORD HAVE MERCY ON HIS SOUL AND THINE! Apprehensive of the too partial regard of his nearest friends, and esteeming truth above the proudest trophies of MONUMENTAL FLATTERY, at the age of 51 he caused this plate and inscription to be made.