William Alers Hankey 

William Alers Hankey, like his colleague John Poynder, was a Congregationalist businessman actively involved in numerous evangelical associations during his lifetime. He worked closely with the Religious Tract Society for many years, assisting in the production of an early tract, Scripture Extracts. He devoted considerable volunteer time to proofreading tracts written in various languages, including Spanish, which he mastered during his later adult years. Hankey also served as treasurer of the Protestant Union in 1843. Hankey, of Fenchurch Street, was also actively involved in numerous evangelical associations during his lifetime. As a Congregationalist, he served as chair of a subsidiary meeting at Finsbury Chapel, London, during the annual gathering of the London Missionary Society, 12 May 1842. Hankey had published a pamphlet in 1840 condemning the British government’s support of the Juggernaut through certain tax collections, the same topic being raised by Peggs in the above letter. Hankey had argued that the Brahmins often raised the issue of British support for idolatry in India as a reason for their rejecting Christianity. He writes, “‘Why,’ say they, ‘do you find fault with our religion, when your own government openly supports it?’ The Mahomedan rebuke is still more pungent, ‘You may pile up your arguments from earth to heaven, they will never make me a Christian. You are idolaters, and we hate idolatry. We serve one God: you pretend to serve one God, and yet support idolatry. Since you ruled this country you have always paid for the support of idolatry; we never did. And you can support idolatry, and yet be Christians?’” See Baptist Magazine 34 (1842), 308; Baptist Magazine 35 (1843), 658; Missionary Herald (March 1848), 148-150; William Jones,  The Jubilee Memorial of the Religious Tract Society: Containing a Record of its Origin, Proceedings, and Results (London: Religious Tract Society, 1850), 60.