4 Windsor Terrace was the home of Hannah More. More, born in Fishponds in 1745, was a Bluestocking poet, friend of William Wilberforce, and strongly opposed to the Slave Trade. In 1788 More wrote ‘Slavery, a Poem’, to coincide with Wilberforce’s political campaign for abolition. The poem, depicting the mistreatment of a female slave, is highly critical of Bristol’s involvement in the Slave Trade. More moved to this house in 1828 from her Somerset home in Barley Wood. In his Reminiscences, Cottle writes of a visit to More in this house in Clifton:
'She brought us to the windows of her spacious drawing room, and there, in the expanse beneath, invited us to behold the new docks, and the merchants' numerous ships, while the hill of Dundry appeared (at the distance of four miles) far loftier than her own Mendip, and equally verdant. From the window of her back room also, directly under her eye, a far more exquisite prospect presented itself than any Barley Wood could boast; Leigh Woods, St. Vincent's Rocks, Clifton Down, and, to crown the whole, the winding Avon, with the continually shifting commerce of Bristol; and we left her with the impression that the change in her abode was a great accession to her happiness.' (Cottle, Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey (1847), pp. 39-42
As well as being a prolific poet and prose writer, More authored plays. Dr John Langhorne, poet and translator of Plutarch wrote the prologue to More’s first tragedy The Inflexible Captive (1775), with the epilogue written by David Garrick, actor. Her second play, Percy (1777), is a Highland drama that received much critical acclaim. It contains strong sentiments opposing ‘fanatic wars’ and these have particular contextual weight due to the American War of Independence. It was performed at Bath and Bristol, and starred Mrs Simmons, who also acted in More’s next piece, False Falsehood.
More became the acknowledged poet of the Bluestockings not long after her introduction to Elizabeth Montagu.
