Sarah Trimmer

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Sarah Trimmer

by Sir Thomas Lawrence
oil on canvas, circa 1790
30 in. x 25 in. (762 mm x 635 mm)
Purchased, 1982
Primary Collection
NPG 5498

Sitterback to top

  • Sarah Trimmer (1741-1810), Evangelist and children's writer. Sitter in 4 portraits.

Artistback to top

  • Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), Portrait painter, collector and President of the Royal Academy. Artist or producer associated with 698 portraits, Sitter in 25 portraits.

This portraitback to top

Having established her own charity Sunday schools, she wrote The Economy of Charity (1786) to promote this form of education. In 1787 she joined William Wilberforce and Hannah More in forming the high-profile Society for the Suppression of Vice which campaigned for religious observance and moral decency among all classes. She was also a founder of a conservative periodical the Guardian of Education (1802-6).

Linked publicationsback to top

Subjects & Themesback to top

Events of 1790back to top

Current affairs

Attempts to modify the Test and Corporation Acts are defeated, despite campaigning by dissenters such as the prominent Unitarian preacher and pamphleteer, Richard Price. The Acts prevented those outside the established church from holding government or military office.

Art and science

Joseph Mallord William Turner exhibits his first painting at the Royal Academy; a watercolour of The Archbishop's Palace, Lambeth.
The Firth to Clyde and Oxford to Birmingham canals are begun.

International

Edmund Burke publishes Reflections on the Revolution in France. A landmark work of opposition to the Revolution which offered a critique of the radical philosophy behind events in France; the Reflections have been read as an articulation of the foundations of modern British conservatism. George Vancouver explores the north west coast of America.

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