[Back to De Quincey's Confessions of an English Opium Eater]
Last modified 19 March 2002
Jonas Hanway (12 August
1712-5 September 1796). Hanway was a London merchant, philanthropist, traveller,
pamphleteer and eccentric. His Essay on Tea published in 1756 considered
the drink as pernicious to health, obstructing industry and impoverishing the
nation. Hanway founded the Marine Society in 1756 and was a member of the Russian
Society. Despite his many good works, he is now remembered chiefly as the pioneer
of the umbrella, which he was the first person to use in the streets of London;
it only became accepted after many years of ridicule. There is a memorial to
him in Westminster Abbey.