Anne Steele Tomkins

Anne Steele Tomkins (1769-1859) was the younger half-sister of the poet Mary Steele (1753-1813) of Broughton, niece of the famed hymn writer Anne Steele (1717-78), and sister to Martha Steele (1770-1834), who never married and lived with Anne most of her adult life. Anne Steele married Joseph Tomkins of Abingdon in 1790 and was instrumental in preserving much of what is known today as the Steele Collection. Her daughter, Mary Steele Tomkins [Bompas]  (1793-1861), was a favorite niece of Mary Steele with whom she corresponded between 1803 and 1808. 

During the late 1780s, Robert Hall, while assistant minister at Bristol and tutor in the Baptist Academy there, developed a romantic interest in the younger Anne Steele. A by-product of Hall’s interest in her and his visits to Broughton were some publications he contributed to the Salisbury Journal, later published in Leicester in 1815. Though he was mostly known during these early years in Bristol for his brilliant intellect, dynamic pulpit presence, and somewhat eccentric mannerisms, Hall apparently made his mark in the community as an eligible bachelor as well.  Only J. W. Morris, in his Biographical Recollections of the Rev. Robert Hall, A. M. (London, 1833), includes details on this aspect of Hall’s life in Bristol in the late 1780s. Morris states that Hall was in love with a relation of Miss Anne Steele, the poet, but he does not specify who it is. Unfortunately for Hall, the young lady, Morris writes,

appears to have viewed with indifference all the ardour, all the gracefulness, and all the mental attractions of the unrivalled Robert Hall; but the peculiar sensibility of the disappointed party, added a poignancy to the grief and chagrin, which no ordinary mind could well appreciate.  And, on this occasion, some of the newspapers amused the public with a number of singular anecdotes, ill adapted to promote his tranquility.  ( Morris, 52-53)

Her rejection left Hall in such a distracted state that it affected his writing, his preaching, and even his reputation.  To make matters worse, ‘a number of singular anecdotes’ about Hall’s troubles appeared in the Bristol papers, much to Hall’s chagrin. Despite the pain of rejection, what may have troubled Hall even more, according to Morris, is that he believed, whether mistakenly or not, that the primary individual ‘endeavouring to alienate the object of his affections’ and procure for him ‘the severest of all human disappointments’ was none other than his own pastor, Caleb Evans.  Given the closeness of Evans to the Steele family, Morris is certainly not far from the truth. Morris argues that Hall was not surprised by this interference, for he had been experiencing difficulties with Evans and others in the Broadmead congregation for some time some differing opinions in matters of theology, philosophy, and politics.  

Morris claims that Hall took this bitterness, both over the loss of the one he loved and the betrayal of the one he admired, with him to Cambridge, and that ‘pointed allusions to this painful circumstance may be found in his correspondence for upwards of twelve years afterwards’ (p. 55), complicated considerably by Evans’s sudden death in 1791. 

The best scenario, however, is that Hall’s ill-fated pursuit of Anne Steele occurred in 1786-87, culminating in his rejection by her and his subsequent publication in the Salisbury Journal in 1787 of his prose piece, ‘Reverie’, under the signature ‘Leptos’. This piece reflects a mind distraught, almost bitter, about the miseries of love. It is more likely that the affair ended at this time, but Hall’s knowledge of Evans’s role in the affair may not have come to light until 1790, at which time Anne Steele was being courted by Joseph Tomkins of Abingdon.