Harford JS

John Scandrett Harford, Jr. (1785-1866):

Eldest surviving son of above + Mary Gray, born at Bristol on 8 October

1785: elder brother died in 1804, when JSH 19, making him heir of father's

estates - time when JSH Jr turned to religion in big way. Almost nothing in

'Christian Observer' different from DNB, bar more detail on his

confrontation with Robert Owen in 1841 - was exceptionally pious Christian

moralist (clearly why Hannah More loved him so much) and after chairing the

discussion between John Brindley and Owen, he gave long anti-socialist

anti-Owen speech (reported in full in 'Christian Observer') - e.g.

"According to the creed of Socialism, we are none of us responsible beings.

I will tell Mr. Owen (and I should indeed rejoice could I hope to make an

impression on his reason and his heart), I say I will tell Mr. Owen, I know

that I am a responsible being. I will tell him that, early in life, I had to

contend with strong passions, wich, had I been a Socialist, must, on the

principles of their creed, have inevitably hurried me into an abyss of sin,

and consequent misery. I tell him that the sole cause which enabled me to

bridle those passions, and to tread, in some degree, the narrow path of

Christian virtue, has been that in the school of Christ, and at the foot of

His cross, I learnt, and received strength to practice, the difficult but

necessary art of Christian self-control, and habitual resistence of my

corrupt nature. It is thus, and thus only, that I have achieved that degree

of triumph over myself, which has enabled me, amidst manifold imperfections,

to aspire to act on Christian principles, and to promote Christians ends and

objects. And let me further tell Mr. Owen, that, were he to become a humble

learner in the same school of Christ, were he with true sincerity, deep

humility, and earnest prayer, to study the great truths of Revelation, -

there is everything to warrant the hope that his heart would be changed, and

that by looking with penitential faith to the Lamb of God, who taketh away

the sins of the world, he would be saved, though at the eleventh hour. . . .

[and] let me, before I close, tell you what pain it has given me that such

libertine principles, such vile blasphemies, as have been brought forward

during this discussion, should have been sounded in your ears. . . .

Socialism is nothing more than one of the manifold forms which infidelity

has from time to time assumed in vain endeavours to shake that foundation

[of Christianity]. It will speedily pass away, and make room for some new

form of blasphemy and error, which will prove equally vain and transient;

but though error is manifold in its forms, truth is always one and the same,

and the banner of the triumphant Cross shall remain unfurled till it points

to and hails the coming of the glorious Saviour, conquering and to conquer,

King of Kings and Lord of Lords".

Also some detail on support - as member of CofE (gave up being Quaker in

1808) - he gave to "every religious and philanthropic movement" in his

neighbourhood - e.g. president for 15 yrs of Bristol Royal Infirmary - and

through these concerns became firm friends of Hannah More and William

Wilberforce. In particular, JSH prominent in birth and development of the

Church Missionary and British and Foreign Bible Societies, during time when

Sidney Smith and other wits of day were launching great satires against them

(1810s): e.g. he set up in 1813 the Bristol branch of the Church Missionary

Society.

Great lover of art, esp Michelangelo - wrote 2 vol biography, 'Life of

Michel Angelo' (1857), and owned several works by him. During 2 visits to

Italy (1846-47 and 1852-53) he collected materials for this biography, and

had made a careful copy of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, which was then

chromo-lithographed at Berlin by M. Grüner, and hung in Blaise Castle. [No

more details available]. When visiting Louvre in Paris in 1815 went with Sir

Thomas Lawrence (no other details on this), to view Napoleon's acquistions.

Hannah More's 'Coelebs in Search of a Wife', published in 1809: apparently

true that appalling dull, virtuous, pious, moralizing and self-righteous

hero - More's idea of the perfect man - was based on JSH.