‘Favour’d with the Lord’s wonders’ – the Society for the Reformation of Manners in Hull, 1698-1706

On 18 February 1698, forty-five religiously motivated merchants, mariners, and tradesmen in Hull formed a society which aimed to hinder the ‘abounding sin & wickedness of the present age’ – the open public drunkenness, swearing, Sabbath-breaking, and prostitution that they daily encountered in their town. Their methods included initiating prosecutions against their neighbours’ offences, and sponsoring sermons on the subject of moral reformation. They took inspiration from Royal proclamations against immorality, and modelled their activities on similar groups elsewhere. But unlike those other societies, most of the reformers in Hull were Dissenters, who had only recently been barred by law from openly practising their faith. The emergence of the reforming societies raised divisive questions about who had authority to direct voluntary religious enterprises in Britain – questions which laid bare ongoing social and religious tensions at the turn of the eighteenth century.

Daniel Reed was born in Beverley. He gained a BA (Hons) in History from the University of Hull, and a PhD from Oxford Brookes University. He has published widely in the fields of eighteenth-century patronage and religion, early regional newspapers, and the life and works of the author and clergyman Laurence Sterne. His book ‘Favour’d With the Lord’s Wonders: The Society for the Reformation of Manners in Hull, 1698-1706’ was published by the University of Wales Press in 2023.