Trowbridge Academy and School

In 1729 Anne was sent to school in Trowbridge. We do not know if the school was linked to the academy in the same town but the academy was there from around 1712 to around 1743.

The academy appears to have been established by John Davisson, pastor to the General Baptist congregation in Trowbridge. Davisson was succeeded to both the pastoral charge and office of tutor by Thomas Lucas (d 1741) in 1721. In 1737 the academy was voted a supply of books by the General Baptist church at Paul's Alley, London. [See Jerom Murch, A History of the Presbyterian and General Baptist Churches in the West of England (London, 1835), 72-3] Lucas apparently died a Unitarian. In 1736, there was a secession from the church. They formed the Back Street congregation, which we have mentioned was pastored by Nathaniel Rawlings of Bourton who came later to Broughton.

According to Timothy Whelan the boarding school for young ladies was run by Katherine Hurn(e). Mrs Hurn’s husband, John Hurn(e), was a deacon in the Baptist chapel at Conigre Hill, Trowbridge. There, relations of the Steeles - the Cators, Froudes, Gays and Cottles - all worshipped.

During her time in Trowbridge, Anne lived in the home of her cousin, Grace Cottle. Another cousin, Elizabeth Gay (b. 1715), also attended Mrs Hurn’s school at the same time. Anne’s first bouts with tertian malaria occurred during her school days (1729-31).

Thomas a Kempis

Quoting Cindy Aalders (Cindy Aalders, “Writing Religious Communities: The Spiritual Lives and Manuscript Cultures of English Women, 1740–90,” D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 2014, 155.) Bruce Hindmarsh says

The Baptist hymn writer Anne Steele described her godly stepmother as “the christian’s pattern,” quoting, unmistakably, the common English title of the Imitation.

(The Spirit of Early Evangelicalism: True Religion in a Modern World, 88)

Short Review of Priscilla Wong's Book

In that other justly famous Table Talk, Samuel Taylor Coleridge once said: “Prose = words in their best order; poetry = the best words in the best order.” It is thus fitting that praises to God often take poetic form, whether in the Psalms, hymnody, or poetry itself. To effect that fitting end, God gives the church poets who help us return to him those “best” words. Some are familiar to us, like Donne, Herbert, Cowper, or Taylor. Yet there are many in times past, as in our own day, who compose in obscurity. There are still others who were widely read in their day, only to fade into the mists of time today. Such is the fate of the Baptist poetess and hymn-writer Anne Steele (1717-1778).

Thankfully, the church is experiencing the beginning of a renaissance of Steele’s works. While a number of detailed studies of Steele have recently been published — one thinks of Cynthia Aalders’ To Express the Ineffable, or the work of Julia Griffin, not to mention J. R. Broome’s large biography — Priscilla Wong has done the important work of synthesising these studies to give a fresh, thoughtful, and broadly accessible analysis of her poetry. In a culture that is reared on the nonsense of Dan Brown novels, or Fifty Shades of Grey, poetry is like an unbreakable code. Not only has poetry been relegated to the periphery of modern education, but when the form is manifested in pop culture, it is gibberish like Justin Beiber’s “Baby, Baby, Baby” that gets the widest hearing. Wong’s Anne Steele and her Spiritual Vision is a welcome corrective.

The book, the fruit of Wong’s graduate thesis at Toronto Baptist Seminary, written under the careful eye of Michael Haykin, does a great job at setting Steele in her historical and cultural context. Like so many poets in her day, Steele stood in the cross-currents of evangelicalism, the Enlightenment, and Romanticism. While not over-burdening the reader, this context is well-established in the introduction, and throughout the other four chapters. Wong - following a kind of redemptive-historical trajectory - traces three themes in Steele’s poetry: God’s glory in creation; faith and suffering; and the promised glory of heaven. All the while Wong is careful to show how Steele encountered God personally in each theme. In her conclusion, she brings together all that she has encountered in Steele’s experiences and applies them for the reader, making the book a “usable past” for spiritual growth. This emphasis on spirituality is a fitting capstone not only to the book, but to the life of Steele, whose poetry and prose is grounded in her communion with God.

Due to her background in literature and theology, Wong proves to be a faithful guide both in terms of the literary form of poetry and the content of the poems. Wong pays careful attention to the use of words, grammar and imagery. She also sets the chapter themes in a discussion with the Baptist theologian John Gill (1697-1771), Steele’s contemporary. Wong not only gives a good handling of primary sources, but is well familiar with secondary material dealing with the history, theology, and literature of this period. She effectively gets into the mind of the writer, using the poems, as well as Steele’s personal circumstances, that helps capture the essence of each poem. All of this makes for satisfying reading. Anne Steele is an enchiridion of sorts for a deeper read of Steele’s corpus.*

While there is a regular attempt to bring classic hymnody back into the church - though we have more work to do with the Psalter, and yes, it would be nice to sing more hymns by Steele - poetry needs a comeback. Maybe a rediscovery of Anne Steele will be a good first step? If so, then surely Priscilla Wong’s book will play an important part.

*An enchiridion is a book containing essential information on a subject

In melting grief and ardent love

An article by Cynthia Aalders in the journal Hymn can be found here.

Caleb Ashworth 1722-1775

Caleb Ashworth (1722-1775) was a correspondent of Ann and a fan of her hymns and poetry. In 1763 he had visited her and she had expressed a lack of assurance. He sought to help her.

He was born at Cloughfold, Rossendale, Lancashire. His father, Richard Ashworth (1668-1751) was a lay preacher among the Particular Baptists; he had three sons - Thomas, PB minister at Heckmondwike; Caleb; and John, a General Baptist minister, colleague of Dr. James Foster, who preached his funeral sermon in 1742.

Caleb was originally a carpenter; he probably was not in sympathy with his father's views, and thus did not at first turn to the ministry. He was afterwards educated for the Independent ministry, under Philip Doddridge, at Northampton, where he first took up his quarters in 1739; and settled at Daventry in 1746, originally as assistant to James Floyd.

Under Doddridge's will, management of the academy was left to Ashworth, and, as the Northampton congregation did not elect him their minister, he moved it to Daventry in 1752. He obtained the degree of DD from Scotland in 1759.

Under Ashworth, Daventry Academy became a leading seat of culture among liberal Independents and Presbyterians, who at that time were close, and shared views on theology and church polity. A list of his students is in Monthly Repository, 1822. The academy covered languages, biblical criticism, and ecclesiastical history quite weakly; its staple was dogmatics and philosophy, including psychology (then called pneumatology), ethics, and physics. Ashworth published for his academy a Hebrew Grammar.

His most distinguished scholar was the Unitarian Joseph Priestley, who says that Ashworth took "the orthodox side of every question" in theology and philosophy, the sub-tutor, Samuel Clark, "that of heresy". Doddridge's plan of referring to authors on all sides of every question, and requiring his students to give an account of them, was pursued by his successors. Rev. T. Thomas, a former pupil says: "Under Dr. Doddridge there was a more popular exterior; under Dr. Ashworth a more disciplined interior."

Article by Simonetta Carr

An interesting article on Anne Steele by Simonetta Carr can be found here.

Nancy Jiwon Cho on Margaret Maison

In a Durham PhD Nancy Jiwon Cho quotes Margaret Maison's essay '"Thine, Only Thine!" Women Hymn Writers in Britain, 1760-1835' (1986) She says it was the first serious modern critical study on women's hymn writing, an essay giving an overview of the pre-Victorian tradition that scrutinises the conditions in which hymns were written, and the themes and tropes that emerge. She asserts that: [The hymn's] extraordinary popularity gave women welcome opportunities for authorship. Icy hostility to Christian ladies as writers melted in the sunshine of sacred song, and those three giants of eighteenth-century hymnology, Isaac Watts and the two Wesleys, John and Charles, all encouraged, influenced and were influenced by women hymn-writers and hymn-singers.

One idea which Maison perpetuates in her essay, says Jiwon, is that Anne Steele is `one of the brightest stars in the firmament of Baptist hymnody, hailed by the historians as the "mother" of English women hymn writers' (p. 14).

Maison writes that Steele's hymns: echo the attractive simplicity, spontaneity and ardour of Watts and the Wesleys, with added notes of feminine sensitivity and introspection. The love and praise of God, the pleasures of the `grateful rapture, ' and the joys of a close personal relationship with Jesus Christ come across strongly. Christ is frequently addressed in the language of a lover [... ]. But He is also the crucified Saviour, with `bloody sweat, like drops of rain'. (p. 15) 

The PhD is accessible here.