author
England) Union and Emancipation Society (Manchester
A Manchester abolitionist society that backed the Union cause during the American Civil War, it published speeches, pamphlets, and reports aimed at turning British opinion against slavery. Its works capture how reformers in industrial England connected local politics with a global fight over freedom.
1 Audiobook
Earl Russell and the Slave Power
by England) Union and Emancipation Society (Manchester
About the author
Founded in Manchester in 1863, the Union and Emancipation Society emerged in response to the American Civil War and the push for emancipation in the United States. It was closely associated with leading local reformers and abolitionists, including Thomas Bayley Potter, who served as its president, and it worked to argue that support for the Union was inseparable from opposition to slavery.
The society became known for publishing pamphlets, public addresses, and meeting reports. These included material connected with figures such as W. E. Forster and Goldwin Smith, and they were meant to influence British public debate at a time when opinion on the war was sharply divided. Manchester, with its deep ties to the cotton trade, was a particularly important setting for those arguments.
Today, the society's surviving publications offer a vivid record of Victorian anti-slavery activism. They show how organized campaigners in Britain used print, public meetings, and moral argument to support emancipation across the Atlantic.