In
1787 Granville Sharp and his friend Thomas
Clarkson decided to form the Society
for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Although Sharp and Clarkson
were both Anglicans, nine out of the twelve
members on the committee, were Quakers.
Influential figures such as John Wesley
and Josiah Wedgwood also gave their support
to the campaign.
Thomas
Clarkson
was given the responsibility of collecting information to support
the abolition of the slave trade. This included interviewing 20,000
sailors and obtaining equipment used on the slave-ships such as iron
handcuffs, leg-shackles, thumb screws, instruments for forcing open
slave's jaws and branding irons. In 1787 he published his pamphlet,
A
Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of
Its Abolition.
After the passing of the Abolition of the
Slave Trade Act in 1807 Sharp joined with
Thomas Clarkson and Thomas Fowell Buxton
to form the Society
for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery.
A new Anti-Slavery Society was formed in
1823. Members included Thomas Clarkson,
Henry Brougham, William
Wilberforce, and Thomas Fowell Buxton.
Two years later, women such as Elizabeth Pease,
Anne Knight, Elizabeth
Heyrick and Mary Lloyd began forming
women's Anti-Slavery Societies.
In 1824 Elizabeth Heyrick published her
pamphlet Immediate not Gradual Abolition.
In her pamphlet Heyrick argued passionately
in favour of the immediate emancipation of the slaves in the British
colonies. This differed from the official policy of the Anti-Slavery
Society that believed in gradual abolition. The leadership of the
organisation attempted to suppress information about the existence
of this pamphlet and William Wilberforce
gave out instructions for leaders of the movement not to speak at
women's anti-slavery societies.
The Female Society for Birmingham had
established a network of women's anti-slavery groups and Heyrick's
pamphlet was distributed and discussed at meetings all over the country.
In 1827 the Sheffield Female Society, became the first anti-slavery
society in Britain to call for the immediate emancipation of slaves.
Other women's groups quickly followed but attempts to persuade the
leadership of the Anti-Slavery Society initially failed.
In 1830, the Female Society for Birmingham
submitted a resolution to the National Conference of the Anti-Slavery
Society calling for the organisation to campaign for an immediate
end to slavery in the British colonies. In an attempt to persuade
the male leadership to change its mind on this issue, the society
threatened to withdraw its funding of the organisation. The Female
Society for Birmingham was one of the largest local society donors
to central funds, and also had great influence over the network of
ladies associations which supplied over a fifth of all donations.
At the conference in May 1830, the Anti-Slavery Society agreed to
drop the words "gradual abolition" from its title. It also
agreed to support Sarah Wedgwood's plan for a new campaign to bring
about immediate abolition. The following year the Anti-Slavery Society
presented a petition to the House of
Commons calling for the "immediate freeing of newborn children
of slaves".
The Anti-Slavery Society was disbanded after the Abolition
of Slavery Act was passed in 1833.
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