Elizabeth Heyrick: The Making of an Anti-Slavery Campaigner

Elizabeth Heyrick fought fiercely for the rights of oppressed people. After a disastrous marriage, she became a prolific pamphleteer, a Quaker and one of the most outspoken anti-slavery campaigners of her time. Despite renewed contemporary interest in slavery, and in the stories of those who opposed it, female abolitionists are still much less well known than their male counterparts. Yet they were often more radical and more daring. Heyrick defied male authority and she led others in challenging William Wilberforce and his colleagues to fight for the immediate rather than the gradual abolition of slavery. This book is the first full length biography of Elizabeth Heyrick and it sets her life in the context of the British anti-slavery movement of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. She was a woman who dared to put her head above the parapet and to call out those responsible for one of the worst abuses of human rights in history. She was courageous, loyal and uncompromising, and did not suffer fools gladly. It was not until long after her death in 1831 that her contribution to the anti-slavery cause started to be recognized and even today, she remains hidden in the shadows of the movement. Using archival records and recently unearthed family materials, as well as contemporary fiction and memoirs, the author creates a compelling account of an unsettled life set in turbulent times. Cover Book Title Copyright Contents List of Plates Acknowledgements Timeline in the Fight for the Abolition of British Slavery Key Characters Searching for Elizabeth Heyrick Backdrop PART I 1760–1770 Chapter 1 ‘.....in hopeless disaccord’ Chapter 2 ‘I will not be trifled with’ Chapter 3 ‘...the prettiest and the ugliest of the litter should both be preserved’ PART II 1780–1790 Chapter 4 ‘No Presbyterians, no machines’ Chapter 5 ‘Never daring even to think of it’ Chapter 6 ‘All the work of a moment’ PART III 1790–1800 Chapter 7 ‘...an emblem of the Wise’ Chapter 8 ‘If we purchase the commodity, we participate in the crime’ Chapter 9 ‘Peace – when there is no peace’ Plates PART IV 1800–1820 Chapter 10 ‘The Rights of the Poor’ Chapter 11 ‘A War with beggars! An exterminating crusade against the poor and miserable!’ Chapter 12 ‘...by a train of most exquisite reasoning’ PART V 1820–1830 Chapter 13 ‘Let compensation be made in the first place where it is most due’ Chapter 14 ‘Finish the great work’ Chapter 15 ‘A burning passion for justice’ Endnotes Select Bibliography Appendix 1 Appendix 2 Index Back cover