Beilby Porteus - Other Reforms

Other Reforms

During much of the following 20 years – a time of huge national and international political upheaval, Porteus was in a position to influence opinion in the influential circles of the Court, the government, the City of London and the highest echelons of Georgian society. Porteus did this, partly by encouraging debate on subjects as diverse as the slave trade, Catholic emancipation, the pay and conditions of low-paid clergy, the perceived excesses of entertainment taking place on Sundays—and by becoming a vocal supporter of William Wilberforce, Hannah More and the Clapham Sect of evangelical social reformers. He was also appointed as one of the members of the Board for Encouragement of Agriculture and internal Improvement in 1793. He was active in the establishment of Sunday Schools in every parish, an early patron of the Church Missionary Society and one of the founder members of the British and Foreign Bible Society, of which he became vice-president.

He was a well-known and passionate advocate of personal Bible-reading and even gave his name to a system of daily devotions using the Porteusian Bible, published after his death, highlighting the most important and useful passages; and was responsible for the new innovation of the use of tracts by church organisations. Always a Church of England man, Porteus was, however, happy to work with Methodists and dissenters and recognised their major contributions in evangelism and education.

In 1788, George III had again lapsed into one of his periods of mental derangement (now diagnosed as Porphyria), to national concern. The following year, a Service of Thanksgiving for his recovery was held in St Paul's Cathedral, at which Porteus himself preached.

The war against Napoleon began in 1794 and was to drag on for another twenty years. Porteus' tenure as Bishop of London saw not only services of thanksgiving for British victories at the Battles of Cape St. Vincent, the Nile and Copenhagen, but the great national outpouring of sorrow at the death of Nelson in 1805, and his state funeral service in St Paul's Cathedral in 1806. As Bishop of London, Porteus may have officiated at some of these services, although it is unlikely that he did so at Nelson's funeral, because of the Admiral's reputation as an adulterer.

After a gradual decline in his health over the previous three years, Bishop Porteus died at Fulham Palace in 1809 and, according to his wishes, was buried at St Mary’s church, Sundridge in Kent – a stone’s throw from his country retreat in the village – a place to which he had loved to retire every autumn.