Maria Hack

Maria Hack (née Barton, 16 February 1777 – 4 January 1844) was an English writer of educational books for children.

Maria was born to John Barton (1755–1789) and his wife Maria Done (1752–1784) in Carlisle on 16 February 1777. Both her parents were Quakers. The family moved to London before Maria's mother died. Her father married again to Elizabeth Horne (1760–1833) of Tottenham, with whose family Mary lived after her father's death. Maria married the Chichester currier Stephen Hack (1775–1823) on 17 November 1800 in Tottenham.

The Hacks had four sons and six daughters. At some point the family moved from Chichester to Gloucester. Her eldest son, John Barton Hack (1805–1884), emigrated to South Australia, as did her youngest, Stephen (1816–1894). Both later left the Quakers. Her daughter Margaret Emily (1814–1886) also wrote educational books, and married Thomas Gates Darton (1810–1887) of Darton and Harvey, the publisher of some of her mother's books. Another son, Thomas Sandon Hack (1811–1865) was an architect who designed several buildings in Southampton, including the Royal Southern Yacht Club (opened 1846) and the original Royal South Hants Infirmary (opened 1844).

Hack, influenced by the Evangelicalism of her time, became involved in a religious controversy among the Quakers, supporting a Manchester minister, Isaac Crewdson, in arguing that Scripture, not Inner Light, should be the ultimate authority and that the sacraments of Baptism and Communion should be performed. She left the Quakers in 1837 and joined the Anglican Church soon after, as a sister and three of her children had already done. Her contribution to the controversy was a tract entitled The Christian Ordinances and the Lord's Supper... (1837).

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