Thomas
Fowell Buxton
was born at Castle Hedingham, Essex in 1786. His mother was a member
of the Society of Friends and she introduced
him to the famous Quaker family, the Gurneys
from Norwich. Thomas became a close friend
of, Joseph Gurney and his sister, Elizabeth
Fry. Although a member of the Church of
England, Buxton began attending meetings of the Society
of Friends with the Gurney family. After studying at Trinity College,
Dublin, Buxton married Joseph's sister, Hannah Gurney in 1807.
Buxton became involved in the Quaker campaign
for social reform. This included raising money for the weavers in
London who were suffering from the economic
consequences of the textile factory system. Buxton also supported
Elizabeth Fry and her work for prison reform.
In 1817 he joined Fry's Association for the Improvement of the Female
Prisoners in Newgate. The following
year he published An
Inquiry into Prison Discipline,
a book based on his investigations of Newgate
Prison.
In 1818 Buxton was elected as MP for Weymouth. In the House
of Commons he worked for changes in the criminal law, prison reform
and the abolition of the slave trade. In 1820 he became involved in
the campaign to abolish capital punishment. Although he never achieved
this, he was largely responsible for reducing the number of crimes
punishable by death reduced from over two hundred to eight.
Buxton was the father of eight children. In 1820 four of these children
died during an outbreak of whooping cough. Later, another son died
of consumption.
In 1823 Buxton helped form the Society
for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery. After William
Wilberforce retired in 1825, Buxton became the leader of the campaign
in the House of Commons. However, Buxton
had to wait until 1833 before Parliament passed the Slavery
Abolition Act that gave all slaves in the British Empire their
freedom.
In 1839 Buxton published The
African Slave Trade and Its Remedy. In the book
Buxton urged the British government to make anti-slave trade treaties
with the different rulers in Africa. The government accepted Buxton's
suggestion and in 1841 they sent an expedition
to the Niger River Delta. A missionary headquarters was established
and negotiations began but the party suffered so many deaths from
fever they were recalled to London.
Although Buxton did not accompany the group, it was later claimed
that his health was affected by the failure of the project. Thomas
Fowell Buxton died on 19th February, 1845.
(1)
Thomas Fowell Buxton published
An
Inquiry into Prison Discipline in 1818. William
Wilberforce read the book and sent a letter to Buxton.
I hope you will come soon into Parliament, and
be able to contend in person, as well as with your pen, for the rights
and happiness of the oppressed and the friendless. I claim you an
an ally in this blessed league.
(2) In July, 1818, Thomas Fowell
Buxton was elected to represent Weymouth in the House of Commons.
His friend, Joseph Gurney, wrote a letter
of congratulations.
Do not let thy independence of all party be the
means of leading thee away from sound Whiggism. Let us take special
care to avoid the spirit of Toryism. I mean that spirit which bears
the worst things with endless apathy, because they are old.
(3) In a letter to Joseph
Gurney in 1819, Thomas Fowell Buxton described the House
of Commons debate on the Peterloo Massacre.
We have had a wonderful debate. All the leaders
spoke, and almost all outdid themselves. But Francis Burdett stands
first; his speech was absolutely the finest, and the clearest, and
the fairest display of masterly understanding, that ever I heard;
he did not utter a sentence to which I could not agree.
(4) Thomas Fowell Buxton wrote
to his uncle about the Peterloo Massacre
in 1819.
I most strongly condemn the conduct of the
ministers, in giving them public thanks; and I think in justice, as
well as in common prudence, that wretched affair ought to be strictly
scrutinised, and it will be very awkward if he should turn out that
these magistrates, having been thanked, deserve to be punished.
(5) In February,
1821, Thomas Fowell Buxton made a speech in the House
of Commons on the subject of capital punishment.
In 1807, forgery of stamps was made a capital
crime. And, the question is, with what effect? The solicitor of the
excise declared the change to be a change for the worse. In 1811 the
linen bleachers came to Parliament praying for a mitigation in the
law against stealing from bleaching grounds. With what effect? I will
take the last five years during which the crime was capital and the
last five years during which it has not been capital. We have done
as well without as with capital punishment. To inflict death needlessly,
can be called by no other name than that of legal murder.
(6) In 1821
the daughter of Elizabeth Fry wrote about
the speech in the House of Commons on capital
punishment given by her brother-in-law, Thomas Fowell Buxton.
On 23rd May, Sir James Mackintosh brought
forward his motion, "for mitigating the severity of punishment
in certain cases of forgery". It was on this occasion that Mr.
Buxton delivered his admirable speech upon capital punishment. Many
were convinced by his arguments; based as they were upon incontrovertible
facts, varied calculations, and unquestionable evidence. some had
taken their seats, indifferent as to the question at issue, his warm
appeal to their humanity, and the responsibility of legislating for
the lives of thousands, without having weighed the merits of the case,
or considered the practical effects of punishment, aroused them from
their apathy; others from a dread of change, and a certain sort of
adherence to the opinions of a party, unconnected with the merits
or demerits of the opinions themselves, were startled by the delicate
irony, with which he showed the impracticability of the laws.
(7) Thomas Fowell Buxton, speech
on slavery in the House of Commons (15th
May, 1823)
The slave sees the mother of his children stripped
naked and flogged unmercifully; he sees his children sent to market,
to be sold at the best price they will fetch; he sees in himself not
a man, but a thing - an implement of husbandry, a machine to produce
sugar, a beast of burden!
(8) Thomas Fowell Buxton, speech
in the House of Commons (9th May, 1826)
The voyage, the horrors of which are beyond description.
For example, the mode of packing. The hold of a slave vessel is from
two to four feet high. It is filled with as many human beings as it
will contain. They are made to sit down with their heads between their
knees: first, a line is placed close to the side of the vessel; then
another line, and then the packer, armed with a heavy club, strikes
at the feet of this last line in order to make them press as closely
as possible against those behind. And so the packing goes on; until,
to use the expression of an eyewitness, "they are wedged together
in one mass of living corruption". Thus it is suffocating for
want of air, starving for want of food, parched with thirst for want
of water, these poor creatures are compelled to perform a voyage of
fourteen hundred miles. No wonder the mortality is dreadful!
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