People Mentioned
Abney, Edward Henry
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q76154758
Born: 1811
Died: 1892
Faith: Anglican
Note: Edward Henry Abney (1811-1892), domestic chaplain to 1st Baron Belper, was vicar of
St. Alkmund's, Derby, afterwards prebendary of Lichfield.
Published: "He Being Dead Yet Speaketh"
Barnard, Edward William
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5345890
Born: 1791
Died: 1828
Faith: Anglican
Note: Edward William Barnard was a divine, poet and scholar. Nephew of fellow abolitionist,
the Archdeacon Francis Wrangham. 'He was educated at Harrow and Trinity College, owing
to his distaste for mathematics. In 1817 he published anonymously, 'Poems, founded
upon the Poems of Meleager,' which were re-edited in 1818 under the title of 'Trifles,
imitative of the Chaster Style of Meleager.' The latter volume was dedicated to Thomas
Moore, who tells us in his journal that he had the manuscript to look over, and describes
the poems as 'done with much elegance.' Barnard was presented to the living of Brantingthorp,
Yorkshire, from which is dated his next publication, 'The Protestant Beadsman' (1822),
This is described by a writer in 'Notes and Queries' as a 'delightful little volume
on the saints and martyrs commemorated by the English church, containing biographical
notices of them, and hymns upon each of them.’ Barnard died prematurely on 10 Jan.
1828' (source: ODNB, https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Barnard,_Edward_William).
Published: The Woldsman's Prayer
Barton, Bernard
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/47543211
Born: 1784
Died: 1849
Faith: Quaker
Note: Bernard Barton was a Quaker poet who was best known for The Convict's Appeal (1818),
in which he protested against the death penalty and the severity of the criminal code.
Published: The Starting-Post; or, Clarkson at Wades-Mill, A Negro-Mother's Cradle-Song, A Christian Negro's Thanks and Prayer, The Goal; or, Clarkson in Old Age
Benson, Maria
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/29881923
Born: 1781?
Died: ?
Faith: ?
Note: Maria Benson was a British writer. She was the author of the novel The Wife (1810) and the pedagocial essay 'Thoughts on Education'. She was the daughter of Edward Benson, a wine merchant from York, and sister of Anna Dorothea Montagu (1773/4–1856) -- a friend of Robert Burns and the third wife of reformer and author Basil Montagu (1770–1851) (source: ODNB). See also https://womensprinthistoryproject.com/person/2769.
Published: Rest
Best, Thomas
Born: 1787
Died: 1865
Faith: Anglican
Note: The Rev. Thomas Best, 'father of the Sheffield clergy', was for forty-eight years the Incumbent of St. James's Church, long the fashionable church of the town. He was also a rare 'conformist' in the Bow in the Cloud, having moved from the Congregationalist to the Anglican Church before he moved to Sheffield. He was also known as a critic of the theatre, believing that actors and theater-goers would go to hell. He delivered his first sermon against the theater in 1817. He continued to deliver annual sermons on the subject from the pulpit of St. James's for 47 years, except for one year when he was ill (see Richard Foulkes's Church and Stage in Victorian England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997).
Published: The True Freedman
Bowring, John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q332508
Born: 1792
Died: 1872
Faith: Unitarian
Note: Sir John Bowring was the 4th Governor of Hong Kong and a hymnwriter and translator.
Published: The Negro
Bridges, Matthew
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18093862
Born: 1800
Died: 1894
Faith: Anglican
Note: Matthew Bridges was a British-Canadian hymnodist.
Published: True Liberty
Brown, James Baldwin
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/61925237
Born: 1785
Died: 1843
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: James Baldwin Brown (1785-1843) was a miscellaneous writer, was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1816, and practised on the northern circuit and at the Lancashire quarter sessions. He was appointed judge of the Oldham court of requests in 1840, and died in November 1843. Brown married a sister of the Rev. Thomas Raffles, D.D., and was father of the Congregationalist minister James Baldwin Brown (1820–1884).
Published: To My Native Country, The Negro Burial Ground
Bulmer, Agnes Collinson
Name ID: https://viaf.org/viaf/306133896/
Born: 1775
Died: 1836
Faith: Methodist
Note: Born in London, Bulmer was a poet who belonged to the Wesleyan community, having been
admitted by Charles Wesley himself. Her major publications include Memoirs of Mrs.
Mortimer and a 12-book epic poem entitled Messiah's Kingdom (1833). This poem, consisting
of nearly fourteen thousand verses, is one of the longest works of poetry composed
by a woman. See also the Wikidata item and Andrew O. Winckles' 'The Book of Nature
and the Methodist Epic: Agnes Bulmer's Analogic Poetics and the End(s) of Romanticism'
Womens Writing 22:2 (2015), pp. 209–28,
(https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2015.1011841).
Published: Liberty, Song
Burchell, Thomas
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7788037
Born: 1799
Died: 1846
Faith: Baptist
Note: Thomas Burchell was a leading Baptist missionary and slavery abolitionist in Montego
Bay, Jamaica, in the early nineteenth century.
Published: The Persecuted Missionary (with William Knibb), Letter from Thomas Burchell to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/103)
Buxton, Thomas Fowell
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/12306089
Born: 1786
Died: 1845
Faith: Quaker
Note: Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet Buxton of Belfield and Runton (1 April 1786
– 19 February 1845) was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and
social reformer. In 1822 he succeeded William Wilberforce as leader of the campaign
in the House of Commons for the abolition of slavery in the British colonies and thus
was partly responsible for the Abolition Act of 28 August 1833.
Published: Compensation for the Slave, Letter from Thomas Fowell Buxton to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/116), Letter from Thomas Fowell Buxton to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/117)
Carey, Eustace
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19022952
Born: 1791
Died: 1855
Faith: Baptist
Note: Eustace Carey was a missionary to India and religious campaigner. He was the son of Thomas Carey, a non-commissioned officer in the army, and the nephew of Dr. William Carey, Indian missionary. He was born 22 March 1791 at Paulerspury, Northamptonshire. He began his preparatory studies for the baptist ministry under the Rev. Mr. Sutcliff at Olney, and in 1812 went to Bristol College; as he set out in the beginning of 1814 as a missionary to India, arriving at Serampore on 1 Aug. On account of failing health he was compelled to leave India, and, arriving in England in September 1825, he in the following year began to advocate the claims of missions throughout the home counties, subsequently extending his visits to Scotland and Ireland. In 1828 be published 'Vindication of the Calcutta Baptist Missionaries,' and in 1831 'Supplement to the Vindication.' In the latter year he published the 'Memoir' of his relative William Carey, D.D. He took a prominent part in the agitation against slavery in Jamaica, and in 1840 was appointed a delegate to the churches there (source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Dictionary_of_National_Biography,_1885-1900/Carey,_Eustace).
Published: The Insurrection in Jamaica
Cecil, Richard
Name ID: https://www.biblicalcyclopedia.com/C/cecil-richard-(2).html
Born: 1799
Died: 1863
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: The Rev. Richard Cecil was a Congregationalist minister. He was born in London on 13 Jan. 1799. At the age of fourteen he was converted, and at sixteen entered Rotherham College. He began his ministerial work at Whitehaven, and afterwards removed to Harpenden, near St. Alban's. In 1824 he became pastor of St. James Street Chapel, Nottingham. After remaining there five years, he spent nine years at Turvey as preacher, and as tutor for the London Missionary Society. He was pastor of Chipping Ongar (Essex) from about 1838 to 1847. While at Ongar he directed a small training school for intending missionaries. Among his students, in 1838-9, was David Livingstone (1813-1873), the missionary and explorer. He then returned to Turvey, and died there 30 Jan. 1863.
Published: Preface (with Mary Anne Rawson), The Lot of the Slave
Conder, Eliza
Name ID: https://hymnary.org/person/Conder_JE1
Born: 1785
Died: 1877
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Joan Elizabeth Thomas (Eliza Thomas) was born on 6 April 1785, in Hammersmith, Lodon. She was the daughter of Roger Thomas and granddaughter of the sculptor, L. F. Roubiliac. She married Josiah Conder on 8 February 1815, in Battersea. They were the parents of at least 4 sons and 1 daughter. Conder contributed poems to The Associate Minstrels, 1810, under the signature "E."; to her husband's work, The Star in the East, 1824, anonymously; to the Congregational Hymn Book, 1836, in her own name; and to The Choir and Oratory, 1837, with an asterisk (John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)). She died in 1877, in Lewisham, London, England, at the age of 92.
Published: Sonnet, The Birthright of Britons, Letter from Eliza Conder to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/16), Letter from Eliza and Josiah Conder to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/18)
Conder, Josiah
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6290456
Born: 1789
Died: 1855
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Josiah Conder (17 September 1789–27 December 1855) was a bookseller, abolitionist, author, hymn-writer and close associate of Romantic authors, and kept up a correspondence with James Montgomery, Ann Gilbert (née Taylor), Robert Southey, Rev. Robert Hall, Rev. John Foster, and other writers of the day. He had become proprietor of the 'Eclectic Review' in 1814, and he retained the management of this periodical until 1837, when be transferred it to Dr. Thomas Price, having during his editorship rendered much service to dissenting Christians. He was also active in the Congregational Union and in 1836 he edited The Congregational Hymn Book: a Supplement to Dr. Watts’s Psalms and Hymns (2nd ed. 1844).
Published: "For Who Maketh Thee to Differ?", Letter from Eliza and Josiah Conder to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/18)
Cunningham, Allan
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2062341
Born: 1784
Died: 1842
Faith: Presbyterian
Note: Allan Cunngingham was born in Dumfriesshire, Scotland. He was a poet and well connected to the circle of Romantic writers that included Thomas De Quincey, Charles Lamb, William Hazlitt, John Keats, and Thomas Hood -- all of whom who were contributors to the London Magazine in the early 1820s. His father was a neighbor of Robert Burns. After publishing some poems disguised as old ballads in Remains of Nithsdale and Galloway Songs (1810), he went to London where he became assistant (1814–41) to the sculptor Sir Francis Chantrey. In his spare time he was a hard-working writer and editor. He collected old ballads and stories, published as Traditional Tales of the English and Scottish Peasantry (1822) and The Songs of Scotland, Ancient and Modern (1825). He wrote The Lives of the Most Eminent British Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, 6 vol. (1829–33). He edited The Works of Robert Burns (1834), prefacing it with a biography of Burns that contained much valuable new material.
Published: The Slave's Lament
Douglas, James
Name ID: https://digital.nls.uk/histories-of-scottish-families/archive/95281787?mode=transcription
Born: ?
Died: 1861
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: James Douglas came from a long line of Scottish nobles dating back to Sir James Douglas, who fought with Robert the Bruce during the Scottish Wars of Independence. Douglas was the eighteenth in descent from Archibald, second son of James, second Earl of Douglas, who was killed at the battle of Otterburn, 21st July, 1388. He was born on 9 October 1790 at Cavers, near Hawick, Roxburghshire, and died there on 17 August 1861. He became laird of Cavers on the death of his father in 1815. He published on philosophy, religion, politics and history, and was a staunch opponent of slavery. In 1833 he published his 'Address on Slavery' (Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black; and London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1833), which argued for the economic costs of slavery and empire. His intention was to broaden the appeal to those who could oppose slavery on utilitarian rather than moral principles.
Published: "Praise waits for Thee in Zion, Lord!"
Edmeston, James
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/19298317
Born: 1791
Died: 1867
Faith: Anglican
Note: James Edmeston was a British architect, surveyor, and well-known hymnwriter. Edmeston
published The Search, and other Poems in 1817.
Published: The Death of the Slave, Futurity
Elliot, Charlotte
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4946512
Born: 1789
Died: 1871
Faith: Anglican
Note: Charlotte Elliott (18 March 1789–22 September 1871) was primarily known as an Anglican hymn writer and even to this day is not associated with anti-slavery activism, which is possibly why she did not want her name included in the volume, but she was (until 1834) a member of the Clapham Group, a group of Anglican evangelicals (including Hannah More and William Wilberforce) who campaigned against slavery.
Published: The Dying Negress
Ely, John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q55020582
Born: 1793
Died: 1847
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: John Ely (1793–1847) was a minister from Leeds. He was educated at Hoxton Academy (London), which was a training institution for dissenting Congregational ministers. Ely served as a pastor in various locations, including Rochdale before moving to Leeds. His work and influence were significant in the religious life of Leeds, particularly in the context of the Congregational movement, which emphasized independent, self-governing congregations outside the established Church of England (source: https://www.genuki.org.uk/big/eng/YKS/WRY/Leeds/Leeds-SalemChapelCongChurch).
Published: Funeral Oration
Everett, James
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6133551
Born: 1784
Died: 1872
Faith: Methodist
Note: The Reverend James Everett (1784-1872) was a Methodist minister and writer from Manchester. He was born in 1784 at Alnwick in Northumberland. At an early period he formed the habit of taking careful notes of the celebrated characters whom he met, and thus preserved recollections of Robert Southey, poet laureate, James Montgomery, William Dawson, and many others. He was subject to criticism and eventual expulsion from the Methodist Conference (the highest legislative authority in the Methodist Church) in 1849. Expelled because he wrote critical pamphlets against the hierarchy, Everett continued his agitation, and became a prolific author and prime mover in the formation of a new sect in 1857, ‘The United Methodist Free Church’.
Published: Poem: 'Reign of Terror', by James Everett, enclosed in a letter to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/186)
Gilbert, Ann Taylor
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/10688233
Born: 1782
Died: 1866
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Ann Gilbert (née Taylor) was an English poet and literary critic. She was the daughter
of the non-comformist pastor, author, and engraver Isaac Taylor (1759–1829), and second
wife of Joseph Gilbert, a Congregationalist minister. She gained lasting popularity
in her youth as a writer of verse for children. In the years up to her marriage, she
became an astringent literary critic. However, she is best remembered as the elder
sister and collaborator of Jane Taylor.
Published: Oppression, To a Negro Infant, The Mother
Gilbert, Joseph
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6283438
Born: 1779
Died: 1852
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Joseph Gilbert (1779–1852) was an Independent then Congregational minister who in
1813 married the renowned children's author Ann Taylor (who also contributed to The
Bow in the Cloud).
Published: The Bible and Slavery
Gurney, Joseph John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6284410
Born: 1788
Died: 1847
Faith: Quaker
Note: Joseph John Gurney (1788–1847) was a philanthropist and religious writer, born at Earlham Hall, near Norwich, on 2 Aug. 1788, was the tenth child and third son of John Gurney, a member of a well-known quaker family, and a successful banker in Norwich, who was descended from Joseph, younger brother of John Gurney (1689–1741).
Published: Remarks on the Christian Duty of Putting an End to End Slavery
Hall, Samuel Carter
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2218070
Born: 1800
Died: 1889
Faith: Spiritualist
Note: Samuel Carter Hall (9 May 1800 – 11 March 1889) was an Irish-born Victorian journalist who is best known for his editorship of The Art Journal and for his much-satirised personality; he is regularly cited as the model for the character of Pecksniff in Charles Dickens's novel Martin Chuzzlewit (1843/44).
Published: The Cup of Gold
Hamilton, Richard Winter
Name ID: https://viaf.org/viaf/27156859/
Born: 1794
Died: 1848
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Richard Winter Hamilton was an English Congregational minister and writer. He was born at Pentonville, London, on 6 July 1794. In 1810 he entered Hoxton Academy to study for the ministry and began to preach early. In January 1815 he was chosen to be minister of Albion Independent Chapel, Leeds, where he became a popular preacher. He was an original member, and sometime president, of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society (established 1821), to which he presented several papers.
Published: To the Slave, A Brief Account and Familiar Description of Jamaica...
Hill, Richard
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q9310294
Born: 1795
Died: 1872
Faith: ?
Note: Richard Hill (1795-1872) was a Jamaican lawyer, zoologist, politician, and poet, as
well as leader of the free people of colour, which campaigned for equal rights in
the early nineteenth century.
Published: Creole Maiden's Song
Hill, Thomas
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15990044
Born: 1788
Died: 1875
Faith: Anglican
Note: The Reverend Thomas Hill was the deacon of Chesterfield when the Bow in the Cloud was published. Hill was educated at Trinity College, Cambridge. He was ordained deacon in 1811 and priest in 1812. He was vicar of Badgeworth from 1821 to 1847 (Crockford's Clerical Directory, 1865 edition). From 1847 to 1873 he was Archdeacon of Derby.
Published: The Grave of Wilberforce
Holland, John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15452389
Born: 1794
Died: 1872
Faith: Methodist
Note: John Holland (14 March 1794–28 December 1872) was an English poet, newspaper editor,
and writer on mining, botany, geology, topography and metallurgy. Born on the grounds
of the ancient Sheffield Manor, in Yorkshire, he published poems as a young man that
caught the attention of James Montgomery.
Published: The Set Time, A Word for the Slave
Hornblower, Jane Elizabeth Roscoe
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/74211865
Born: 1797
Died: 1853
Faith: Unitarian
Note: Jane E. Roscoe was a poet. She was the daughter of the abolitionist MP William Roscoe
(1753–1831) and Jane Roscoe (née Griffies). In 1838 she married the Unitarian minister
Francis Hornblower (1812–1853). Her Poems by one of the Authors of Poems for Youth
by a Family Circle were published in 1820, and her Poems in 1843 Her hymns in common
use are:—
1. How rich the blessings, O my God. Gratitude. In the Liverpool Kenshaw Street Collection
1818.
2. My Father, when around me spread. Peace in Affliction. Appeared in the Monthly
Repository, Dec, 1828; and the Sacred Offering, 1832.
3. O God, to Thee, Who first hast given. Self-Consecration. In Poems for Youth, 1820.
4. Thy will be done, I will not fear. Resignation.
[Rev. Valentine D. Davis, B.A.] (John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907).)
Sister of William Stanley Roscoe; Elizabeth Roscoe; Edward Roscoe; James Roscoe; Robert
Roscoe; Thomas Roscoe; Richard Roscoe; Mary Anne Jevons and Henry Roscoe.
Published: Sonnet. The African Mother. A Fact
Howard, George William (Lord Morpeth)
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2079517
Born: 1802
Died: 1865
Faith: Anglican
Note: George Howard, 7th Earl of Carlisle (1802-1865), known as Lord or Viscount Morpeth
in the Bow in the Cloud, was a Whig politician, orator, and writer. He was closely
associated with a group of Whig Liberal Anglicans who opposed the Evangelical movement.
He also exchanged sonnets with William Wordsworth.
Published: Ode on the Abolition of Slavery
Howitt, Mary Botham
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/42648131
Born: 1799
Died: 1888
Faith: Quaker
Note: Best known for her children's poem 'The Spider and the Fly' (1829), Howitt also painted
and translated Hans Christian Anderson.
Published: The Negro-Mother, Visions of Slavery
Howitt, William
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/22908301
Born: 1792
Died: 1879
Faith: Quaker
Note: William Howitt was a Quaker writer and activist. In 1821 he married Mary Botham.
Published: West-Indian Slavery, The English Peasant
James, Paul Moon
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7152575
Born: 1780
Died: 1854
Faith: Quaker
Note: Paul Moon James was a British poet, banker, and lawyer, who also served for a time as magistrate of Worcestershire and later as High Bailiff of Birmingham, England.
Published: "A Voice from America's Plains" and "A Cry from the Isles of the West"
Knibb, William
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8014079
Born: 1803
Died: 1845
Faith: Baptist
Note: William Knibb was a Baptist minister and missionary in Jamaica.
Published: The Death of a Female Slave, The Little African Pleader, A Brief Account of a Much-Persecuted Christian Slave, The Persecuted Missionary (with Thomas Burchell)
Marsh, William
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q8015149
Born: 1775
Died: 1864
Faith: Anglican
Note: William Marsh (1775–1864) was a British priest in the Church of England and a writer of theological publications, in the 19th century. He was the vicar in St Peters, Colchester where his daughter, Catherine Marsh, the writer was born. He matriculated from St Edmund Hall, Oxford on 10 October 1797, graduated B.A. 1801, M.A. 1807, and B.D. and D.D. 1839. At Christmas 1800 he was ordained to the curacy of St. Lawrence, Reading, and was soon known as an impressive preacher of evangelical doctrines. Ill-health obliged him in 1829 to leave Colchester, and in October of the same year he accepted the rectory of St. Thomas, Birmingham, where from the frequent subject of his sermons he came to be known as 'Millennial Marsh'.
Published: The Negro Poetess
Miles, Richard
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7327809
Born: ?
Died: ?
Faith: ?
Note: Richard Miles was a Motswana (Tswana) catechist and preacher "to the native tribes
beyond the border" in South Africa, who was acquainted with the London Missionary Society.
Montgomery, James
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/183634
Born: 1771
Died: 1854
Faith: Moravian
Note: James Montgomery was a Scottish-born hymn writer, poet, editor, and activist who eventually settled in Sheffield. He was the eldest son of a Moravian clergyman, and was born at Irvine, Scotland, on 4 November 1771. He was educated at the Moravian school at Fulneck, near Leeds. He was the editor of the Sheffield Iris newspaper from 1794 to 1825, and was twice imprisoned in the 1790s for publishing articles critical of the authorities. He authored The Wanderer of Switzerland (1807), a poem severely criticised in the Edinburgh Review (Southey sympathised). He also wrote the anti-slavery poem The West Indies (1809) and a series of long historical epics, including Greenland (1819). Southey admired much about Montgomery’s verse (a feeling he shared with Byron), and Southey and Montgomery
were occasional correspondents.
Published: The Rainbow, Leonard Dober, The Negro is Free, Letter from James Montgomery to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/78), Letter from James Montgomery to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/81), Letter from James Montgomery to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 414/82)
Parker, John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6251908
Born: 1799
Died: 1881
Faith: Anglican
Note: John Parker (21 October 1799 – 5 September 1881) was an English Whig politician and
barrister. He was instrumental in the enfranchisement of Sheffield, petitioning Parliament
in 1817 and 1822, and creating a pamphlet stating the case for Sheffield in 1830.
When the Sheffield constituency was finally created as a Parliamentary borough in
1832 he was elected alongside James Silk Buckingham as its first MPs. He served as
MP for Sheffield until 1852, becoming Lord of the Treasury (1839–1840), First Secretary
of the Admiralty, joint Secretary to the Treasury (1846–1849), and a Member of the
Privy council (1853).
Published: Libertas: Quae Sera Tamen, Respexit, &c. &c.
Pilkington, George
Name ID: https://viaf.org/viaf/21715216/
Born: 1785
Died: 1858
Faith: Not known
Note: George Pilkington was born in Dublin, in 1785, and finished his education at Trinity College, where he probably was of some mark in mathematics, as he quitted the University to accept a commission in the Royal Engineers. He eventually became Captain. In 1848, he was appointed by Earl Grey to be Colonial Engineer of the Cape of Good Hope, where he died in 1858. He was known among anti-slavery activists for his lectures and for his reports on slavery in Brazil for the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (An Address to the English Residents of the Brazilian Empire, published in 1841).
Published: The Black Soldier
Pringle, Thomas
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q380383
Born: 1789
Died: 1834
Faith: Presbyterian
Note: Thomas Pringle was a Scottish writer, poet, and abolitionist. A friend of Sir Walter Scott, and for a short time editor of the Edinburgh Monthly Magazine, he published his first volume of poems in 1809, which included ‘The Emigrant's Farewell’. He emigrated to South Africa, and he is remembered chiefly as a poet of that country. His Ephemerides (1828) and African Sketches (1834) reveal his sympathetic interest in Africa. He became the secretary of the London Anti-slavery Society in 1827. In 1834, the year the Slavery Abolition Act was passed, he died of consumption.
Published: The Desolate Valley, The Forester of the Neutral Ground
Pritchard, Joseph William Henry
Born: 1804?
Died: 1836
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Reverend J. W. H. Pritchard was a congregationalist minister. In 1826 he published
a life of his predecessor. He died 14th July, 1836, at 32.
Published: Freedom Indeed, The Aged Negro
Raffles, Thomas
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q16854223
Born: 1788
Died: 1863
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Thomas Raffles was a Congregational minister. was born in Princes Street, Spitalfields, London, on 17 May 1788, the only son of William Raffles (1753–1825 ), a Baptist and a solicitor (d. 1825), and his wife, Rachel, née Dunsby (1755–1832). Thomas's sister, Mary (d. 1858), later married the judge James Baldwin Brown (1790–1843). Between 1805 and 1809 he studied at Homerton College under Dr John Pye Smith. He declined a call to Hanover Street, Long Acre, but settled at George Yard Chapel, Hammersmith, and was ordained on 22 June 1809. On the sudden death of Thomas Spencer of Newington Chapel, Liverpool, Raffles was invited to succeed him. He began his Liverpool ministry on 19 April 1812, and moved on 27 May to the new Great George Street Chapel which had been built to accommodate Spencer's swelling congregation... Besides his verse compositions and his translation of Klopstock's Messiah (1814), Raffles published his Memoirs of Thomas Spencer (1813), Letters during a Tour through France, Savoy, etc. (1818), Lectures on Practical Religion (1820), Lectures on the Doctrines of the Gospel (1822), Hear the Church! A Word for All. By a Doctor of Divinity, but not of Oxford (1839—a riposte to Pusey), The Divine Command: a Jubilee Sermon to the London Missionary Society (1844—interesting in that it produced a premillennialist backlash), Internal Evidence of the Inspiration of Scripture (1849), and Independency at St Helens (1856). He edited a new edition of John Brown's Self-Interpreting Bible (1815). (source: ODNB)
Published: Letter from Thomas Raffles to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/188), Letter from Thomas Raffles to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/190)
Rawson, Mary Anne
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/4004154867602660100003
Born: 1801
Died: 1887
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Mary Anne Rawson was an abolitionist and activist. She campaigned with the Tract Society
and the British and Foreign Bible Society, for Italian nationalism, and against child
labour. She was first involved as a founding member of the Sheffield Ladies Anti-Slavery
group, which successfully campaigned for people to boycott sugar from the West Indies,
as it was produced by slave labour.
Published: Preface
Pye-Smith, John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q6058440
Born: 1774
Died: 1851
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: John Pye-Smith (1774-1851) was Theological Tutor, effectively Principal, of Homerton Academy from 1806-1850. Born to a Sheffield bookseller John Smith and his wife Mary, John Pye Smith had little formal education, instead teaching himself using the many books available to him in his father’s shop. In 1800, after completing his studies at the Rotherham Academy, Pye Smith was appointed Resident Classical Tutor at Homerton Academy, and became Theological Tutor in 1806. Was friends with James Montgomery.
Published: The Abbé Grégoire
Sheppard, John
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18009203
Born: 1785
Died: 1879
Faith: Baptist
Note: John Sheppard (15 October 1785 – 30 April 1879) was an English religious writer. He was born in Frome into a family that dominated cloth manufacture in the city since the Restoration. He undertook active involvement in the affairs of the Particular Baptists, a group that holds to a Calvinist soteriology (salvation belief). In 1837 he published An Autumn Dream, a Calvinistic version of Dante's Paradiso, in blank verse, of over 150 pages, that went into three editions.
Published: Heard Ye Those Mild Tones of Gladness?
Smith, A. H.
Born:
Died:
Faith:
Note:
Published: Slavery
Sterndale, Mary Handley
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/61410705
Born: 1766
Died: 1840
Faith: Anglican
Note: Born in Derbyshire, Mary Handley Sterndale was a poet, novelist, and travel writer known particularly for children's literature.
She became friends with the poet Anna Seward (1742–1809; ODNB). See more at https://btw.wlv.ac.uk/authors/1138.
Published: The Slave-Ship
Stevens, Maria
Born: ?
Died: 1840
Faith: Anglican
Note: Maria Stevens was known for religious writings, instruction, and community work in Knaresborough, Yorkshire. In 1840 Stevens left an endowment to the school to provide bibles for an annual prize. She was the carver Samuel Fisher's second daughter. She was married to Lawrence Stevens of Swaffham and Knaresborough (son of Admiral Stevens); they had two children, who both died young. Her sister, Elizabeth, was married to the Rev. Andrew Cheap, Rector of Elvington and Knaresborough; he was probably responsible for the fact that the Fisher workshop produced so many monuments for Christ Church in Harrogate (Poppy Corita Myerscough, 'The Fishers of York'. PhD Dissertation, University of York, 1996). She belonged to St John the Baptist Church, Knaresborough. She died in 1840 and, according to her memorial in the Parish Church, 'laboured with unwearied zeal and love for the spiritual benefit of the people of this place'. William Stubbs, bishop of Oxford, recalled, 'Mrs. Stevens, a name deeply beloved in the town, gave Bible lessons in a little room off Kirkgate, near the station, and there he constantly attended. "I do not suppose any one was ever more beloved than she", he said in after years; and when he preached in 1872 at the parish church after its restoration, he recalled the "most gracious presence, inseparable from the history of this place, not to be forgotten the commanding eye, and noble figure; the sweet and most eloquent voice; the wonderful hold on Scripture in the spirit and the letter; the marvellous industry that poured forth book after book, illustration after illustration, all the time teaching continuously and continually; nursing the sick, comforting the dying and the sinner, guiding the little ones, foremost in every good work; all with a zeal, a power, an energy that made her a very exception to all the rules that bind the life of Englishwomen, and withal the most sympathetic, the most kindly, the wisest counsellor we ever knew."' (William Stubbs, bishop of Oxford, 1825-1901 : (From the letters of William Stubbs). London : Archibald Constable, 1908).
Published: Luke X.25–37
Taylor, Isaac
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4453749
Born: 1787
Died: 1865
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: English philosopher, writer, artist, and inventor. Brother of Jane and Ann Taylor. He was trained as draughtsman and engraver, executing designs for his father, the engraver and children's writer Isaac (1759–1829), and for the books issued by his sister Jane Taylor. He also executed anatomical drawings for a surgeon, and painted miniatures, one a portrait of his sister, another of himself in 1817. Some of his designs for John Boydell's 'Illustrations of Holy Writ' (1820), were admired by Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and compared by Alexander Gilchrist with some of the plates of William Blake (Life of Blake, 1863). He was friends with Josiah Conder, who in 1818 invited him to join the regular staff of the Eclectic Review.
Published: Letter from Isaac Taylor to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/164)
Taylor, Thomas Rawson
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/26896473
Born: 1807
Died: 1835
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Thomas Rawson Taylor was a Congregationalist minister and hymn writer. He was the son of the Rev. Thomas Taylor, some time Congregational Minister at Bradford, Yorkshire. He was born at Ossett, near Wakefield, May 9, 1807, and educated at the Free School, Bradford, and the Leaf Square Academy, Manchester. He died March 7, 1835. A volume of his Memoirs and Select Remains, by W. S. Matthews, in which were several poems and a few hymns, was published in 1836. His best known hymn is 'I'm but a stranger here'.
Published: The Martyred Missionary's Grave
Thompson, George
Name ID: http://viaf.org/viaf/39366358
Birth: 1804
Death: 1878
Note: George Thompson (18 June 1804 – 7 October 1878) was a British anti-slavery orator and activist who toured giving lectures and worked for legislation while serving as a Member of Parliament. He also became closely connected to American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison in 1833 and later Wendell Phillips. In 1831, his inaugural year as an anti-slavery lecturer, Thompson met with Nathaniel Paul, an African American who was touring Britain to raise money for a fugitive slave colony in Ontario. In the following decades, Thompson collaborated with dozens of black visitors, including Frederick Douglass, with whom he publicly shamed the Free Church of Scotland for accepting a large donation from American slaveholders in 1840. Favoring a quick and decisive emancipation of all slaves, he was ultimately unsatisfied with the British Emancipation Act of 1833, because it forced slaves to work as apprentices for six years after, and used his position in Parliament to push for additional legislation.
Published: Letter from George Thompson to Mary Anne Rawson (English MS 415/162)
Townley, Dinah Ball
Born: 1776
Died: 1859
Faith: Methodist
Note: Dinah Townley (née Ball) was Mary Anne Rawson's governess and a published poet. She had previously been a teacher at a private school in west London, where she had received 16-year old Mary-Anne in 1817, and arrived at Wincobank following a rather dramatic recalling of the wilful elder daughter a few months later. She was also connected to James Montgomery, who in the early 1820s published her pamphlet Missionary Society: A Dialogue, which Rawson read (Twells 2009, pp. 93–95). She married the Wesleyan Methodist minister James Townley in 1829.
Published: Hope, Granville Sharp, Pierre Sallah, Poem: 'Toussaint Louverture', by Dinah Ball (English MS 414/37)
Townley, James
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q19107008
Born: 1774
Died: 1833
Faith: Methodist
Note: 'Wesleyan divine, son of Thomas Townley, a Manchester tradesman, was born at that
town on 11 May 1774, and educated by the Rev. David Simpson [q. v.] of Macclesfield.
He became a member of the Wesleyan methodist body in 1790, and a minister in 1796.
In 1822 he received the degree of D.D. from the college of Princeton, New Jersey,
in recognition of his literary work. From 1827 to 1832 he acted as general secretary
of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society, and in 1829 was elected president of
the Wesleyan conference, and presided at the Dublin and Leeds conferences. While in
Manchester he was a member of a philological society founded by Dr. Adam Clarke. He
died at Ramsgate on 12 Dec. 1833. He was twice married—to Mary Marsden and Dinah Ball,
both of London—and had seven children by his first wife' (Dictionary of National Biography,
1885-1900/Townley, James (1774-1833)).
Published: The Abolition of Slavery
Townsend, Lucy
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18528740
Born: 25 July 1781
Died: 20 April 1847
Faith: Anglican
Note: Lucy Townsend (née Jesse) was a British abolitionist. Born in West Bromwich July 1781, Lucy Jesse was the daughter of Reverend William Jesse, incumbent at All Saints Church from 1790 to 1814. She married Rev. Charles Townsend, curate of West Bromwich, in 1807. He became vicar in 1815 until 1836. She started the first Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Birmingham, called the Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves. Townsend's organisation was not affiliated to any national organisation, nor was it a partner organisation for Birmingham's male Anti-Slavery Organisation. Rawson's Sheffield organisation was the first Anti-Slavery organisation in Britain to propose an immediate end to slavery. Townsend's organisation took a more conservative view in 1839 when they followed the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society's policy of supporting a more gradual move.
Published: The Decision
Townshend, Chauncey Hare
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5088270
Born: 1798
Died: 1868
Faith: Anglican
Note: Chauncey Hare Townshend (1798–1868) was a poet and collector. He took holy orders
in the Church of England as a young man, but was disabled by illness from the active
duties of his profession. Early in life he made the acquaintance of Robert Southey,
and received an invitation to Greta Hall, Southey's residence in the vale of Keswick.
Encouraged by the laureate's approbation, he published a volume of ‘Poems’ in 1821
(London, 8vo) which were generally praised. He also became friends with Charles Dickens,
owing to his interest in mesmerism.
Published: Sonnet On the Present Crisis of Affairs...
Walker, Elizabeth Abney
Name ID: https://www.geni.com/people/Elizabeth-Abney/6000000204883880265
Born: 1782
Died: 1850
Faith: Congregationalist
Note: Elizabeth Walker was a poet and activist and wife of Henry Walker (1785-1860), an
iron and steel businessman from Rotherham (see https://www.cliftonpark.org.uk/homepage/29/the-walkers-of-clifton-house).
Published: The Hope of the Slave, The Triumph of Freedom, Invocation to Liberty
Watson, Joseph
Name ID: https://www.benshamgrove.org.uk/history/the-spence-watsons/
Born: 1807
Died: 1874
Faith: Quaker
Note: The son of Joshua Watson, a cheesemonger, Joseph Watson was a gifted student and articled to a firm of well-known solicitors. By 1830 he was a practicing attorney. He was a reformer in politics and was known to speak before large crowds in Newcastle’s Town Moor about the Reform Bill. He also held strong views on civil and religious liberty and supported the abolition of slavery in America and the West Indies. He was known to welcome to his table at Bensham Grove, fugitive slaves including William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglas. He married Sarah Spence in 1835 and after living in Claremont Place in Bensham for some time the couple made their home at Bensham Grove on the death of his father in 1853. As well as his interest in politics, he was a poet and writer of children’s stories. He also had a great interest in Native Americans.
Published: The Slave-Dowry
Wiffen, Jeremiah Holmes
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5489274
Born: 1792
Died: 1836
Faith: Quaker
Note: Wiffen was a prolific poet and translator. He hailed from an ironmongers family in
Woburn, Bedfordshire. With James Baldwin Brown and the Rev. Thomas Raffles, he published
a book entitled 'Poems by Three Friends' in 1812. In 1821, John Russell, the (progressive)
6th Duke of Bedford, appointed him the Chief Librarian at Woburn Abbey. He set about
writing a history of the Hosue of Russell, translating the Italian poet Tasso, and
writing well-regarded poems such as 'On Planting a Slip from Milton’s Mulberry Tree,
in the Grounds of Woburn Abbey, Presented by Dr. Thackeray, of Cambridge'.
Published: Appeal for the Injured African, They Ask Me for Some Radiant Lay
Williams, Sarah Joanna
Name ID: https://hymnary.org/person/Williams_SarahJohanna1805
Born: 1805
Died: 1841
Faith: Unitarian
Note: Sarah Joanna Williams (1805-1841) was the daughter of Mansfield-based Unitarian minister
Rev. John Williams (1768–1835), the biographer of Rev. Thomas Belsham. She contributed
various poems to the Liverpool Sacred Offering. In the vol. for 1834 is the poem,
"Quiet from God! it cometh not to still The vast and high aspirings of the soul,"
from which the hymn, “Quiet from God! how blessed 'tis to keep," Rest in God, is adapted
in Martineau’s Hymns of Praise and Prayer, also in J. P. Hopp’s Collection.
Published: A Voice from the Land of Bondage
Wood, James Riddall
Born: 1797
Died: 1853
Faith: Anglican
Note: James Riddall Wood was a lawyer and a naval officer, and in due course he joined the East Indian merchant service, in which he attained to the rank of chief officer. He was born in 1798 Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, UK, and died 7 April 1853 Cotton Lands, Verulam, Victoria County, Natal, South Africa. He first married on 27 Dec 1826 to Hannah Healey Weaver (1805–1836) in the Anglican parish church of St. Peter, Mansfield. Hannah was the daughter of the Rev. Robert Weaver. He remarried on 30 May 1836, in Liverpool, to Mary Haygarth (1817–1885). Wood and his family emigrated from England under the auspices of J. C. Byrne Settler Scheme aboard the KING WILLIAM which sailed from London/Plymouth on 20 October 1849 and arrived at Port Natal (Durban), South Africa, on 22 January 1850. He was also a poet whose Angel Visits, and Other Poems was published in London in 1865.
Published: Who is My Neighbor?
Wrangham, Francis
Name ID: https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q15457452
Born: 1769
Died: 1842
Faith: Anglican
Note: Francis Wrangham (1769–1842) was a classical scholar, book collector, and miscellaneous writer. Born on 11 June 1769, he was the only son of George Wrangham (1742–1791), who occupied the farm of Raysthorpe, near Malton in Yorkshire, and rented the moiety of another farm at Titchwell, near Wells, Norfolk. In October 1786 Wrangham matriculated from Magdalene College, Cambridge, and next year won Sir William Browne's medal for the best Greek and Latin epigrams. They were printed in July 1787 in a single octavo sheet. At the suggestion of Joseph Jowett [q. v.] he migrated to Trinity Hall on 16 Nov. 1787, and on 5 Dec. was elected ‘scholaris de minori formâ.’ He graduated B.A. in 1790, being third wrangler in the mathematical tripos, second Smith's prizeman, and senior chancellor's medallist. He proceeded M.A. on 22 March 1793; in the following June he obtained from the tutors of Trinity Hall letters testimonial to the archbishop of York of his good and satisfactory conduct, and in July he was ordained and became rector of Hunmanby in the East Riding. Wrangham eventually left Trinity Hall and became a member of Trinity College. He published many poems and prose works and was connected to Leigh Hunt, Wordsworth, Basil Montagu, and Mary Mitford. He was also a member of the prestigious Roxburghe Club for book collectors. He eventually became the Archdeacon of the East Riding.
Published: Sonnet, Latin Imitation
