Hannah Kilham

Hannah Kilham (1774–1832) née Spurr was an English Methodist and Quaker, known as a missionary and linguist active in West Africa. She was also a teacher and philanthropic activist in England and Ireland.

She was born at Sheffield on 12 August 1774, the seventh child of Peter and Hannah Spurr, in trade there. Brought up in the Church of England, she was permitted to attend John Wesley's early morning services. Her mother's death when she was twelve (1786) had placed her at the head of the household, which consisted of her father and five brothers. Two years later her father died, and she was sent to a boarding-school at Chesterfield. At the age of 20 she joined the Wesleyans.

On 12 April 1798 Hannah Spurr became the second wife of Alexander Kilham, founder of the Methodist New Connexion, who died at Nottingham eight months later (20 December 1798). Hannah Kilham opened a day-school in Nottingham, spending her vacations at Epworth, her husband's early home. There she became acquainted with Quakers, and in 1802 joined the Society of Friends.

In Sheffield, while still teaching, Kilham became involved in philanthropic work. She started a Society for the Bettering of the Condition of the Poor, which was imitated elsewhere.

In 1817 Kilham began work on unwritten languages of West Africa, with the aim of spreading Christianity. She produced an elementary grammar for the children in missionary schools at Sierra Leone. From two African sailors who were being educated at Tottenham, she acquired a knowledge of the Jaloof (Wolof) and Mandingo (Mandinka) languages, and in 1820 printed anonymously First Lessons in Jaloof. Kilham induced the Society of Friends to set up an unofficial African Instruction Fund Committee, in existence 1819 to 1825, with female representation. The committee, on which William Allen and Luke Howard sat, as a preliminary sent William Singleton to West Africa.

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