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.