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Arabella Catherine (Kate) Hankey (1834-1911)
Third surviving daughter of Thomas Hankey, Kate was born on 12 Jan 1834 at Clapham and was baptised on 21 Mar 1834 at Trinity Church, Marylebone.
The family life of the Hankeys was strongly influenced by the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Christians of which her father was probably a member, and this was the source of Kate’s great interest in matters of religious and social concern. As a teenager she taught at Sunday School and began a bible class for shop or factory girls. She went to South Africa to work as a nurse and to bring home her invalid brother [possibly Arthur]. While there she travelled ‘up country’ by ox-cart, and this experience increased her interest in foreign missions.
In her early thirties, Kate cotracted a severe illness. During her protracted recovery, she wrote a long poem about Jesus which was published in 1867. It is in two parts, with the first, fifty stanzas in length, entitled The Story Wanted, and the second The Story Told. I Love to Tell the Story (the music for which was written by William G Fischer in 1869) and Tell Me the Old, Old Story both come from this poem, and the latter became world famous in 1875 when it was included in Bliss and Sankey’s collection, Gospel Hymns and Sacred Songs. Other hymns by her were Advent Tells Us, Christ Is Near and I Saw Him Leave His Father’s Throne.
As part of a memorial to members of the Hankey family at Maiden Newton church (where her brother Montagu was rector for 44 years), Kate Hankey put in an oak reredos.
Kate Hankey died unmarried on 9 May 1911 at 123 Cambridge Street, Pimlico, aged 77, and was buried on 15 May at Brompton Cemetery (East Terrace, 795 South).