author
Joseph Sturge
1793–1859
A Quaker reformer who turned business success into a lifelong fight against slavery, Joseph Sturge helped push Britain toward immediate emancipation. His calm but determined activism also reached into peace work, political reform, and the rights of ordinary working people.
1 Audiobook
A Visit to the United States in 1841
by Joseph Sturge
About the author
Born in Elberton, Gloucestershire, in 1793, Joseph Sturge grew up in a Quaker family and later built a successful grain business in Birmingham. Rather than focus only on commerce, he devoted much of his energy and money to public causes, guided by his religious belief in equality, peace, and practical service.
Sturge became one of the best-known British campaigners against slavery. After traveling to the West Indies in the 1830s to investigate conditions after emancipation laws were passed, he published evidence that former systems of forced labor were still deeply abusive. He went on to found the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, the organization that later became Anti-Slavery International, helping make abolition a truly international campaign.
His interests were wider than one cause alone. He supported peace efforts, backed political reform, and argued for fairer treatment of working people. When he died in 1859, he was remembered not just as an abolitionist, but as a steady, humane reformer who believed moral conviction should lead to action.