~ WHO'S WHO ~
Elizabeth Heyrick (1769-1831)
Elizabeth
Heyrick was born in Leicester in 1769. Her father, John
Coltman was a devout Unitarian. Unitarians believed that someone's behavior
was caused by social environment and not caused by religion.
They advocated
democracy and campaigned for social reform.
Being
raised within this type of environment, Elizabeth was soon
introduced to the ideas of 'Tom Paine.' Paine wrote several articles
advocating the abolition of slavery and he also argued for American
independence. In
1787, Elizabeth married John Heyrick a Methodist lawyer. The couple
remained childless and eight years later John Heyrick died.
Elizabeth moved back home with her parents and had already by this
time become a member of the 'Society of Friends' - later to become
known as Quaker's.
Elizabeth
devoted herself to social reform. She campaigned against
bull-baiting and became a prison visitor. She wrote eighteen
pamphlets on various subjects including one on the 'Corn Laws.'
The Corn Law in Britain had first been introduced in 1804.
Landowners, seeking to protect their profits imposed a duty on
imported corn. Due to the Napoleonic Wars, corn had been impossible
to export from Europe thus ensuring an expansion of British wheat
farming. All which led to higher bread prices.
Elizabeth's
priority however, lay with the campaign against slavery. Committed
to her goal, she organized a sugar boycott in Leicester and helped
to form the 'Birmingham Ladies' Society for the Relief of Negro
Slaves,' later to be renamed, 'The Female Society for Birmingham.'
In 1824,
Elizabeth published a pamphlet, "Immediate not Gradual
Abolition." In this pamphlet she argued in favor of an immediate end to slavery
in the British Colonies. This argument differed from that of the
'Anti-Slavery Society' who advocated gradual abolition. William
Wilberforce who was totally opposed to any woman being involved in
any type of anti-slavery campaigns, delivered instructions to the
leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society, to suppress any information
contained in Elizabeth's pamphlet.
However, most of
the womens' anti-slavery groups in Britain supported Heyrick's call
and in 1830 when Elizabeth was the leader of the 'Female Society for
Birmingham,' a network of women's groups distributed and discussed
her pamphlet all over the country.
In
1830, The Female Society for Birmingham submitted a resolution to
the National Conference of the Anti-Slavery Society, asking the
society to campaign for an immediate end to slavery. Heyrick
attempted to enforce it, by threatening to withdraw funding to the
Anti-Slavery Society in hopes of persuading this male dominated
society to support the resolution.
Heyrick's
society was one of the chief donors to the Anti-Slavery Societies
cause, and out of fear of losing this money, at a conference in May
1830, the Anti-Slavery Society agreed to support the Birmingham
Female Society's proposal for an immediate end to slavery.
Elizabeth
Heyrick died in 1831 and did not live to see the passing of the 1833
"Abolition of Slavery Act." Parliament in passing this act, gave all
slaves in the British Empire their freedom.
Acknowledgements to (and author of the above article): Elizabeth Batt
Her
own excellent website can be found at Leicestershire
Past and Present