Hannah Southall, 1828–1910
Educator, Reformer, Quaker
Hannah Southall was the youngest daughter of a devout Quaker family.
She founded the first Band of Hope in Leominster and was its president to the last; she was a Sunday School teacher for more than half a century.
She founded the first Adult Day School in the town.
Hannah was the daughter of John and Hannah (Burlingham) Southall, a family intimately associated with the life of Leominster for more than 200 years. The youngest of a family of four (which included her brother John Tertius Southall), Hannah was described as a woman of vigorous and striking personality who made a significant contribution to the town.
Her early education was carried on at home, chiefly with a tutor, Joseph Reece. In 1839, she was sent to Letitia Impey’s school at Worcester, where she stayed some years. At school her independent spirit often led to stormy experiences until in in 1841, she was summoned home to tend to her dying mother. Her schooldays over, she and her sister Elizabeth went to live with their father at his house called ‘Farm’ in Bargates. She was to live there for the rest of her life.
In 1863, after their father’s death, the sisters spent the winter at Falmouth. Here they became friendly with another Quaker family, the Foxes of Penjerrick, especially with Caroline Fox, the prison and slavery reformer, and someone after Hannah Southall’s own heart.
In quite early life the two sisters, with the aid of their cousin Priscilla Southall, started a day-school for poor girls, for whom there was then no education except that of the Dame Schools or the National Schools. The first attempt was in the shape of a little class held in the laundry, and taught by her cousins’ governess, Catherine Trusted. The next step was to borrow the Women’s Room at the Meeting-house, but as demand grew another room had to be hired by the Friends, and a teacher engaged. This arrangement continued until the establishment of the British School in Leominster. Even after that date, the sisters continued to visit and teach the children, and at the time of her death, Hannah Southall was still a manager of the School.
From her early years she was actively associated with the Sunday School movement, beginning with an unruly set of boys. As they grew older they still remained with her; and “Miss Hannah’s” became the Young Men’s Class at the Adult School. As the ‘Young Men’s Bible Class’ they later presented her with a portrait of her in commemoration of her fifty years’ work as a Sunday School.
The revived work in the ancient Meeting-house at Almeley lay very near her heart. The two sisters often spent a week or two in the picturesque old family residence near by the meeting-house. As well as serving on many committees relating to the Friends, she also ran the temperance ‘Band of Hope’ in Leominster. Her very last public address was given as vice-president of the Women’s Liberal Association.
