William Morgan (abolitionist)

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.

William Morgan
William Morgan in a detail from a painting at the National Portrait Gallery.[1]
Born1815
Diedc. 1890[2]

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. William Morgan at Connecting Histories.org.uk, accessed 29 July 2008
  3. 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. The Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society, Connecting Histories.org.uk, accessed 29 July 2008
  6. 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. The Baptist Magazine, Baptist Missionary Society
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