Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T21:55:04.134Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Microhistory of British Antislavery Petitioning

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 June 2019

Richard Huzzey
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article refines our understanding of abolitionism as “the first modern social movement” through a microhistory of abolitionism in an eighteenth- and nineteenth-century British town. Examining requisitions, which collected signatures calling on a mayor to convene public meetings to launch parliamentary petitions or other associational activities, the article shows how antislavery mobilization in Plymouth grew amongst a multiplying variety of religious, political, cultural, and economic institutions. Through a prosopography of those initiating antislavery petitions, an analysis of the other requisitions they supported, and qualitative evidence from leading abolitionists’ personal papers, the article details the ways local leaders raised petitions for a national campaign. Civic and religious dynamism at this local level facilitated new forms of contentious mobilization on national and imperial issues. The article therefore directs causal attention to those socioeconomic changes that underpinned the associational cultures of abolitionism.

Type
Special Issue Article
Information
Social Science History , Volume 43 , Issue 3: The Transformation of Petitioning , Fall 2019 , pp. 599 - 623
Copyright
© Social Science History Association, 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Many thanks are due to Annika Bautz, Henry Miller, John Oldfield, Peter Stamatov, Stephen J. Taylor, and Philip Williamson for advice in writing this article, though they remain blameless for its faults. The underlying research was only possible thanks to the kind assistance of staff at Plymouth and West Devon Record Office (hereafter PWDRO), especially Louisa Blight, Debbie Watson, and Tony Davey. I am very much indebted to Nino José Cricco for producing visualisation presented as figure 4.

References

Agency Committee (1832) Report of the Agency Committee of the Anti-Slavery Society. London: S. Bagster.Google Scholar
Allen, Gillian (2009) “Slavery and Two Otter St. Mary families.” Heritage: The Journal of the Ottery St. Mary Heritage Society (30): 3–4.Google Scholar
Andrews, D. E. (2007) Review of Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. Journal of American History 93 (4): 1232–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Anon. (1814) Plymouth, Plymouth-Dock and Stonehouse General Directory. Plymouth, UK: S. Rowe, 1814.Google Scholar
Anon. (1823) The Tourist’s Companion. London: Longman, Hurst, et al.Google Scholar
Anon. (1827) The Tourist’s Companion. Devonport, UK: J. Congdon.Google Scholar
Anti-Slavery Society (1827) Account of the Receipts & Disbursements of the Anti-Slavery Society for the Years 1823, 1824, 1835, and 1826.Google Scholar
Anti-Slavery Reporter (January 7, 1831) Account of the Receipts and Disbursements of the Anti-Slavery Society, for the years 1827 and 1828.Google Scholar
Bailey, William (1783) Bailey’s Western and Midland Directory. Birmingham, UK: William Bailey.Google Scholar
Baptist Magazine (1820) September.Google Scholar
Baron, R. W. S. (1846) Mayors and Mayoralties: Or, the Annals of the Borough. Plymouth, UK: Amelia Arliss.Google Scholar
Bautz, Annika (2017) “The Foundation of Plymouth Public Library: Cultural Status, Philanthropy, and Expanding Readerships, 1810–1825,” in Mark, Towsey and Kyle, Roberts (eds.) Before the Public Library: Reading, Community, and Identity in the Atlantic World, 1650–1850. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill.Google Scholar
Bender, T., ed. (1992) The Antislavery Debate: Capitalism and Abolitionism as a Problem in Historical Interpretation. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bennett, R. J. (2011) “Plymouth Chamber of Commerce 1813-14.” History of Chambers of Commerce, www.geog.cam.ac.uk/research/projects/chambersofcommerce/plymouth.pdf (accessed December 28, 2016).Google Scholar
Black, E. C. (1963) The Association: British Extraparliamentary Political Organization, 1769–1783. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Bradley, J. E. (1990) Religion, Revolution and English Radicalism: Non-Conformity in Eighteenth-Century Politics and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brindley, Robert (1830) The Plymouth, Stonehouse, and Devonport Directory. Devonport, UK: W. Byers.Google Scholar
Brooke, J. (1964) The House of Commons, 1754–1790: An Introductory Survey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brown, Christopher L. (2006) Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Burke, John (1838) A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry. Vol. 4. London: Henry Colburn.Google Scholar
Burroughs, Robert (2015) “Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Abolition from Ship to Shore,” in Robert, Burroughs and Richard, Huzzey (eds.) The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade: British Policies, Practices and Representations of Naval Coercion. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press: 1–13.Google Scholar
Burt, William (1816) Review of the Mercantile, Trading, and Manufacturing State, Interests, and Capabilities of the Port of Plymouth. Plymouth, UK: Nettleton.Google Scholar
Carey, B. (2012) From Peace to Freedom: Quaker Rhetoric and the Birth of American Antislavery, 1657–1761. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carpenter, Daniel (2016) “Recruitment by Petition: American Antislavery, French Protestantism, English Suppression.” Perspective on Politics (14): 700–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carrington, Henry E. (1828) The Plymouth and Devonport Guide. Devonport, UK: Byers.Google Scholar
Carter, Grayson (2004) “Robert Hawker,” in Sir David, Cannadine (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press: Oxford, http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/19664 (accessed April 5, 2017).Google Scholar
Chalkin, Christopher (2001) The Rise of the English Town, 1650–1850. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Church Missionary Society (1829) Proceedings of the Church Missionary Society for Africa and the East. London: L. B. Seeley & Sons.Google Scholar
Clark, Peter (2000) British Clubs and Societies, 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clarkson, T. (1808) The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave-Trade. 2 vols. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, and Orme.Google Scholar
Corfield, Penelope (1982) The Impact of English Towns, 1700–1800. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Corfield, Penelope (1995) Power and the Professions in Britain, 1700–1850. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Davis, David Brion (2014) The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation. New York: Knopf.Google Scholar
Drescher, Seymour (1986) Capitalism and Antislavery: British Mobilization in Comparative Perspective. Basingstoke, UK: Macmillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drescher, Seymour (1994) “Whose Abolition? Popular Pressure and the Ending British Slave Trade.” Past and Present (143): 136–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Drescher, Seymour (2009) “History’s Engines: British Mobilization in the Age of Revolution.” William and Mary Quarterly 3rd series(66): 737–56.Google Scholar
Drescher, Seymour (2011) “Antislavery Debates: Tides of Historiography in Slavery and Antislavery.” European Review (19): 131–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Elbourne, Elizabeth (1993) “The Foundation of the Church Missionary Society: The Anglican Missionary Impulse,” in John, Walsh, Colin, Haydon, and Stephen, Taylor (eds.) The Church of England, c. 1689–c. 1833: From Toleration to Tractarianism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 247–64.Google Scholar
Escott, Margaret (2009) “Sir George Cockburn,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/cockburn-sir-george-1772-1853 (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Fisher, D. R. (1986a) “Plymouth,” in Thorne, R. G. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1790–1820. 5 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/constituencies/plymouth (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Fisher, D. R. (1986b) “William Elford,” in Thorne, R. G. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1790–1820. 5 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, http://historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/member/elford-william-1749-1837 (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Fisher, D. R. (2009) “Plymouth,” in Fisher, D.R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820-1832 . 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/plymouth (accessed May 20, 2019).Google Scholar
Flew, Sarah (2015) “Unveiling the Anonymous Philanthropist: Charity in the Nineteenth Century.” Journal of Victorian Culture (20): 20–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forster, Josiah (1829) Piety Promoted; in Brief Biographical Memorials of Some of the Religious Society of Friends Commonly Called Quakers. The Eleventh Part. London: Harvey and Darton.Google Scholar
Gill, Crispin (1983) “Some Diaries and Memoirs of Plymouth in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.” Transactions of the Devonshire Association (115): 1–18.Google Scholar
Goodwin, Gordon and Baigent, Elizabeth (2004) “Samuel Rowe,” in Cannadine, Sir David (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography . Oxford: Oxford University Press, https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/24206 (accessed May 20, 2019).Google Scholar
Hatchard, John (1819) National Mercies Demand National Thankfulnness. London: J. Hatchard and Son.Google Scholar
Hilton, Boyd (1991) Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795–1865. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hilton, Boyd (2006) A Mad Bad and Dangerous People? England 1783–1846. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Huzzey, Richard (2015) “The Politics of Slave-Trade Suppression,” in Robert, Burroughs and Richard, Huzzey (eds.) The Suppression of the Atlantic Slave Trade: British Policies, Practices and Representations of Naval Coercion. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press: 17–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Innes, Joanna, and Rogers, Nicholas (2000) “Politics and Government, 1700–1840,” in Peter, Clark (ed.) The Cambridge Urban History of Britain. Vol. 2: 1540–1840. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press: 529–74.Google Scholar
Janse, M. (2015) “‘Holland as a Little England’? British Anti-Slavery Missionaries and the Continental Abolitionist Movement in the Mid Nineteenth Century.” Past and Present (229): 123–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, Terry (2009a) “Plymouth,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/plymouth (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Jenkins, Terry (2009b) “Sir Thomas Dyke Acland,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/acland-sir-thomas-1787-1871 (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Jenkins, Terry (2009c) “Sir Thomas Martin,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/martin-sir-thomas-1773-1854 (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Jenkins, Terry (2009d) “Edmund Bastard,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/bastard-edmund-1784-1838 (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Jenkins, Terry (2009e) “Hugh Fortescue, Viscount Ebrington,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/member/fortescue-hugh-1783-1861 (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Jenkins, Terry (2009f) “Devon,” in Fisher, D. R. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1820–1832. 7 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1820-1832/constituencies/devon (accessed April 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Jones, J. P., and Kingston, J. F. (1829) Flora Devoniensis: Or, a Descriptive Catalogue of Plants Growing in the County of Devon. London: Longman et al.Google Scholar
Journal of the House of Commons. xxviii, 1757-61; lxxix, 1824.Google Scholar
Lampen, Robert (1830) “A Discourse, Delivered at the Opening of the Plymouth Athenaeum, February 4th 1819,” in Transactions of the Plymouth Institution. Plymouth, UK: Rowes: 1–18.Google Scholar
Lattimore, Margaret Ivy (1982) “The History of Libraries in Plymouth to 1914: A Study of the Library Developments in the Three Towns of Plymouth, Devonport and Stonehouse which Amalgamated into Plymouth in 1914.” PhD diss., University of London.Google Scholar
Laughton, J. K., and Lambert, Andrew (2004) “Aaron Tozer,” in Cannadine, Sir David (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/27648 (accessed December 28, 2016).Google Scholar
Law Advertiser (1831).Google Scholar
Loft, Philip (2016) “Involving the Public: Parliament, Petitioning, and the Language of Interest, 1688–1720.” Journal of British Studies (55): 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
London Gazette (1801–28).Google Scholar
Moore, Dafydd (2009) “Patriotism, Politeness, and National Identity in the South West of England in the Late Eighteenth Century.” ELH (76): 739–62.Google Scholar
Morris, R. J. (1983) “Voluntary Societies and British Urban Elites, 1780–1850: An Analysis.” Historical Journal (26): 95–118.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Morris, R. J. (1990) Class, Sect and Party: The Making of the British Middle Class, Leeds 1820–1850. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press.Google Scholar
Namier, L. (1964) “Plymouth,” in Namier, L., and Brooke, J. (eds.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1754–1790. 3 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1754-1790/constituencies/plymouth (accessed April 18, 2017)Google Scholar
Oldfield, J. R. (2013) Transatlantic Abolitionism in the Age of Revolution: An International History of Anti-Slavery, c. 1787–1820. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oldfield, T. H. B. (1792) An Entire and Complete History, Political and Personal, of the Boroughs of Great Britain. 3 vols. London: G. Riley.Google Scholar
Owen, Felicity (2004) “Sir William Elford,” in Cannadine, Sir David (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/8624 (accessed December 28, 2016).Google Scholar
Palmer, William (2009) “How Ideology Works: Historians and the Case of British Abolitionism.” Historical Journal (52): 1039–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pease, Charles E. G. (2015) “The Descendants of Henrie Fox,” www.pennyghael.org.uk/Fox.pdf (accessed April 8, 2017)Google Scholar
Plymouth Institution (1871) Annual Report and Transactions of the Plymouth Institution. Vol. 4, Part 2. Plymouth, UK: W. Brendon and Son.Google Scholar
Plymouth Law Society (2016) “Our History,” http://plymouthlawsociety.co.uk/pages/about-us/our-history/90 (accessed April 8, 2017)Google Scholar
Plymouth Weekly Journal (1832) July 12.Google Scholar
Plymouth and Devonport Weekly Journal (1832) September 20.Google Scholar
Pottle, Mark (2004) “John Hatchard,” in Cannadine, Sir David (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/12590 (accessed July 16, 2017).Google Scholar
Prideaux, John (1830) “Geological Survey of Some Parts of the Country Near Plymouth,” in Transactions of the Plymouth Institution. Plymouth, UK: Rowes: 19–45.Google Scholar
Robson, Robert (1959) The Attorney in Eighteenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quarterly Review (1812) December.Google Scholar
Quirk, Joel, and Richardson, David (2010) “Religion, Urbanisation and Anti-Slavery Mobilisation in Britain, 1787–1833.” European Journal of English Studies (14): 263–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, Samuel (1821) The Panorama of Plymouth. Plymouth, UK: Rowes.Google Scholar
Rowe, Samuel (1824) An Epitome of Paley’s Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. London: Baldwick, Cradock, and Joy.Google Scholar
Rowe, Samuel (1828) An Epitome of Paley’s Evidence of Christianity, 2nd ed. London: Baldwick and Cradock.Google Scholar
Rowe, Samuel (1830) “Antiquarian Investigations in the Forest of Dartmoor,” in Transactions of the Plymouth Institution. Plymouth, UK: Rowes: 180–212.Google Scholar
Selleck, A. D. (1967) “Plymouth Friends: A Quaker History—Part II.” Transactions of the Devonshire Association (99): 213–61.Google Scholar
Sherborne Mercury (1788–89).Google Scholar
Square, J. Elliot (1889) Plymouth Medical Society, Instituted 1794. Plymouth, UK: Bowering and Co.Google Scholar
Stamatov, Peter (2011) “The Religious Field and the Path-Dependent Transformation of Popular Politics in the Anglo-American World, 1770–1840.” Theory and Society (40): 437–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Steinitz, Rebecca (2011) Time, Space, and Gender in the Nineteenth-Century British Diary. New York: Palgrave.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stevens, J., and Welch, E. (1962) “The Plymouth Athenaeum.” Transactions of the Devonshire Association (94): 575–78.Google Scholar
Stunt, T. C. F. (2015) The Elusive Quest of the Spiritual Malcontent: Some Early Nineteenth-Century Mavericks. Eugene, OR: Wimpf & Stock.Google Scholar
Sunday School Society (1830) The Twentieth Report of the Sunday School Society for Ireland. Dublin: M. Goodwin.Google Scholar
Sweet, Rosemary (1997) The Writing of Urban Histories in Eighteenth-Century England. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sweet, Rosemary (2003) “Local identities and a national parliament, c. 1688–1835,” in Hoppit, J. (ed.) Parliaments, Nations and Identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660–1850. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press: 48–63.Google Scholar
Thorne, R. G. (1986) “The Constituencies,” in Thorne, R. G. (ed.) The History of Parliament: The House of Commons, 1790–1820. 5 vols. London: History of Parliament Trust, www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1790-1820/survey/i-constituencies (accessed May 20, 2019).Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (1995) Popular Contention in Great Britain, 1758–1834. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (2004) Contention and Democracy in Europe, 1650–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tilly, C. (2008) Contentious Performances. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tilly, C., and Tarrow, S. (2007) Contentious Politics. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers.Google Scholar
Tilly, C., and Wood, Lesley J. (2003) “Contentious Connections in Great Britain, 1828–34,” in Diami, M., and McAdam, D. (eds.) Social Movements and Networks: Relational Approaches to Collective Action. Oxford: Oxford University Press: 147–72.Google Scholar
Trewman’s Exeter Flying Post , August 11, 1814; November 28, 1822; March 4, 1824.Google Scholar
Trewman’s Exeter and Plymouth Gazette March 10, 1827; August 7, 1830.Google Scholar
Turley, David (1991) The Culture of English Antislavery, 1780–1860. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.Google Scholar
Wach, Howard M. (1996) “Civil Society, Moral Identity and the Liberal Public Sphere: Manchester and Boston, 1810–40.” Social History (21): 281–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Welch, Edwin (1962) “Dissenters’ Meeting Houses in Plymouth to 1852.” Transactions of the Devonshire Association (94): 579–612.Google Scholar
Welch, Edwin (1964) “Municipal Reform in Plymouth.” Transactions of the Devonshire Association (96): 318–38.Google Scholar
Wilberforce, R. I., and Wilberforce, S. (1838) The Life of William Wilberforce. Vol. 4. London: John Murray.Google Scholar
Williams, Eric (1944) Capitalism and Slavery . Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Wilson, Kathleen (1995) The Sense of the People: Politics, Culture and Imperialism in England, 1715–1785. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Wood, Marcus (1997) “Imaging the Unspeakable and Speaking the Unimaginable: The ‘Description’ of the Slave Ship Brookes and the Visual Interpretation of the Middle Passage.” Lumen (16): 211–45.Google Scholar
Woof, Robert (2004) “Benjamin Robert Haydon,” in Cannadine, Sir David (ed.) Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, http://oxforddnb.com/view/article/12750 (accessed April 3, 2017).Google Scholar
Woollcombe, Henry (1812) The Picture of Plymouth. Plymouth, UK: Rees and Curtis.Google Scholar
Worth, R. N. (1873) The History of Plymouth from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Plymouth, UK: Brendon and Son.Google Scholar
Worth, R. N. (1890) The History of Plymouth from the Earliest Period to the Present Time. Plymouth, UK: Brendon and Son.Google Scholar
Wright, H. K. W. (1891) “Clubs: Literary and Whimsical,” in Wright, H. K. W. (ed.) Pleasantries: From the “Blue Box.” London: Elliot Stock: i–xvii.Google Scholar