December 4 - Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Heyrick

nPosted on December 4, 2019

Key Points

nI remember learning about the abolition movement in school (a long, long time ago!). I remember thinking that there are a lot of things that can and have been abolished, but only “the effort to abolish slavery” gets the label abolition movement.

The thing is, I pretty much mostly learned about the abolition movement, and its leaders (called abolitionists), in the U.S. You know, Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe…

nBut of course there were abolitionist movements in other nations as well. In Britain, in the late 1700s and early 1800s, a lot of abolitionists worked to outlaw the slave trade, and many were convinced that slavery itself would soon die out after the slave trade had ended.

Today’s famous birthday, Elizabeth Heyrick, who was born on this date in 1769, disagreed with the goal of allowing slavery to gradually die out. She advocated for freeing all the people who had been enslaved (as well, of course, as ending the slave trade!!!).

nBritain did abolish the slave trade in 1808, but slavery continued to exist in the British Empire, notably in the British West Indies (Caribbean islands), where enslaved people worked hard on sugar plantations. Among other things, Heyrick worked against slavery by urging people to boycott sugar from the West Indies, and she even asked grocers not to stock the product.

nEventually, the more moderate abolitionists decided that Heyrick was right, and they switched to demanding immediate (not gradual) abolition.

nElizabeth Heyrick…

nHeyrick was a school teacher until she married a lawyer – but she became a widow at age 25. From then on, she devoted herself to philanthropy and social reform. She was considered one of the most radical female activists of her time.

nBy the way, Heyrick spent some time on other causes: abolishing the death penalty and “corporal punishment” such as whipping, the stocks, etc.; reforming prisons; ending animal cruelty such as bull baiting; making elections more fair; alleviating homelessness (which used to be called vagrancy); and working to improve wages and to help people living in poverty.

nUnfortunately, Heyrick died less than two years before Britain abolished slavery. We can all give her a huge thank you for working on the side of right!!