Everything about Jonas Hanway totally explained
Jonas Hanway (
1712 –
September 5,
1786),
English traveller and
philanthropist, was born at
Portsmouth.
While still a child his father, a
victualler, died, and the family moved to
London. In 1729 Jonas was apprenticed to a merchant in
Lisbon. In 1743, after he'd been some time in business for himself in London, he became a partner with Mr Dingley, a merchant in
St Petersburg, and in this way was led to travel in
Russia and
Persia. Leaving St Petersburg on
September 10,
1743, and passing south by
Moscow,
Tsaritsyn and
Astrakhan, he embarked on the
Caspian Sea on November 22, and arrived at
Astrabad on December 18. Here his goods were seized by
Mohammed Hassan Beg, and it was only after great privations that he reached the camp of
Nadir Shah, under whose protection he recovered most (85%) of his property.
His return journey was embarrassed by sickness (at
Resht), by attacks from pirates, and by six weeks' quarantine; and he only reappeared at St Petersburg on
January 1,
1745. He again left the Russian capital on
July 9,
1750 and travelled through
Germany and the
Netherlands to England (October 28). The rest of his life was mostly spent in London, where the narrative of his travels (published in 1753) soon made him a man of note, and where he devoted himself to philanthropy and good citizenship.
In
1756 he founded
The Marine Society, to keep up the supply of British seamen; in
1758 he became a governor of the
Foundling Hospital, a position which was upgraded to vice president in 1772; he was instrumental in establishing the
Magdalen Hospital; in 1761 he procured a better system of parochial birth registration in London; and in 1762 he was appointed a commissioner for victualling the navy (July 10); this office he held till October 1783. He died, unmarried, on
5 September 1786 and is now buried in the crypt at
St Mary's Church,
Hanwell.
He was the first Londoner, it's said, to carry an
umbrella, and he lived to triumph over all the
hackney coachmen who tried to hoot and hustle him down.
He attacked vail-giving, or tipping, with some temporary success; by his onslaught upon
tea-drinking he became involved in controversy with
Johnson and
Goldsmith. His last efforts were on behalf of
little chimney-sweeps. His advocacy of solitary confinement for prisoners and opposition to Jewish naturalization were more questionable instances of his activity in social matters.
Hanway left seventy-four printed works, mostly pamphlets; the only one of literary importance is the
Historical Account of British Trade over the Caspian Sea, with a Journal of Travels, etc. (London, 1753). On his life, see also Pugh,
Remarkable Occurrences in the Life of Jonas Hanway (London, 1787);
Gentleman's Magazine, vol. xxxii. p. 342; vol. lvi. pt. ii. pp. 812814, 1090, 1143-1144; vol. lxv. pt. ii. pp. 72 1722, 834835;
Notes and Queries, 1st series, i. 436, ii. 25; 3rd series, vii. 311; 4th series, viii. 416.
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