Hackney Phalanx was a group of high-church Tory[1] defenders of Anglican orthodoxy[2] prominent for around 25 years from c. 1805.
One of the Phalanx leaders, Henry Handley Norris, was particularly influential in the church appointments made by the Earl of Liverpool.
[5]The core group of the Hackney Phalanx, which suggested the geographical association with Hackney borough then east of the London conurbation, consisted of Henry Handley Norris, the layman Joshua Watson, and his clerical brother John Watson.
They were active in the field of education, aiming to counter the schools set up on the scheme of Joseph Lancaster.
[7] The context of Hackney in the first two decades of the 19th century was of an area that as a suburb of London had wealthy families, but also an active nonconformist intellectual and religious life, particularly Unitarians.