William Morgan (abolitionist)

William Morgan
Morgan in a detail from a painting at the National Portrait Gallery[1]
Born1815 (1815)
England
Diedc. 1890 (aged 74–75)[2]

William Morgan (1815 – c. 1890) was a leading member of the Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society, whose members were very influential in abolitionist movements in Britain.

Career

Morgan was trained as a solicitor and worked in Birmingham.[3]

He was an active member of the Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society, which campaigned for abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1838. On the anniversary of the abolition a celebration was again held in Birmingham and it was Morgan who distributed information and invitations to the local Sunday Schools.[4]

Morgan was a founder of the local Baptist Union and served as secretary to the Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society[3][5] revived around 1835,[6] when British slavery was made illegal (in 1838).[6] The picture shows him at the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention which was organised by Morgan's colleague Joseph Sturge. Morgan served as a secretary at the 1840 convention. He continued to work with Sturge during the 1850s.

He became the Town clerk in Birmingham[5] and gave a collection of books to Birmingham Library.[2] In 1866, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society sent Morgan to Jamaica.[3]

Family

Morgan was the third son of the Reverend Thomas Morgan.[7] He married Henrietta Barnard, from Nailsworth in Gloucestershire, on 6 March 1841.[7]

Works

  • The Arabs of tía City or a Plea for Brotherhood with the Outcast - Address to the YMCA, Birmingham, 1853 (when he was Town Clerk of Birmingham), Hudson and Son, London

References

  1. ^ National Portrait Gallery
  2. ^ a b William Morgan Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine at Connecting Histories.org.uk, accessed 29 July 2008
  3. ^ a b c Civilising Subjects: Metropole and Colony in the English Imagination 1830-67, Catherine Hall, ISBN 978-0-7456-1821-0
  4. ^ The Culture of English Antislavery, 1780-1860, David Turley, 1991, p.93, ISBN 0-415-02008-5
  5. ^ a b The Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society Archived 23 December 2012 at archive.today, Connecting Histories.org.uk, accessed 29 July 2008
  6. ^ a b Betteridge, A. (2010). Deep Roots, Living Branches: A History of Baptists in the English Western Midlands. Troubador Publishing Limited. p. 217. ISBN 978-1-84876-277-0. Retrieved 20 December 2020.
  7. ^ a b The Baptist Magazine, Baptist Missionary Society