George Stacey (1787–1857) was a leading

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of Christian denomination, denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belie ...

and

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

. He was active in trying to prevent a schism within the Quakers.

Biography

Stacey was born in Kendal.The Quaker Lloyds in the Industrial Revolution
Humphrey Lloyd, 1975, , accessed April 2009 Stacey married a fellow Quaker and cousin, Deborah Lloyd, of the Lloyds banking family. Stacey was then living in Tottenham. He was a business partner in a Chemists business called ''Corbyn, Beaumont, Stacey and Messer''. The Stacey's involvement in this partnership dated from 1772 when Thomas Corbyn took in another George Stacey; who were both Quakers. That George Stacey died in 1816.The Pharmaceutical Industry
Lesley Richmond et al, , 2002, accessed April 2009 In 1823 the Anti-Slavery Society was formed with Stacey as a leading member. The society had many Quaker members and Stacey was also joining his fellow Quakers in business ventures like the

Stockton and Darlington Railway The Stockton and Darlington Railway (S&DR) was a railway company that operated in north-east England from 1825 to 1863. The world's first public railway to use steam locomotives, its first line connected collieries near Shildon with Darl ...

in 1825. Between 1830 and 1850 he was chosen twelve times as the clerk to the influential yearly meeting of the Quakers in London. This may in part be due to Stacey's method of speaking.

Stephen Grellet Stephen Grellet (28 October 1772 – 16 November 1855) was a prominent French-American Quaker missionary. Life Grellet was born Étienne de Grellet du Mabillier in Limoges, France, the son of Antoine Gabriel Grellet, a counsellor of King Loui ...

, the French Quaker reported that Stacey said that he would express his views as clearly as he could once, but would not repeat them as this was unlikely to convince others who did not agree. The Quakers as a whole were committed to ending slavery and Stacey was a leading figure in this endeavour. His business dealt with America and the West Indies and this involvement must have been more than theoretical. During the 1840

World Anti-Slavery Convention The World Anti-Slavery Convention met for the first time at Exeter Hall in London, on 12–23 June 1840. It was organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, largely on the initiative of the English Quaker Joseph Sturge. The exclu ...

there was a disagreement with the American convention who had taken literally the instruction to send delegates. The British organising committee were surprised to find there were female delegates asking to sit in the main hall. It was Stacey who was called on to address the issue on behalf of the organising committee. Stacey noted that the women were valued in the work that they did, but that the committee felt that women were not normally included unless their contribution was essential.Women Against Slavery
Claire Midgely The women from America, and England, were asked to sit away from the main area. The commemorative painting of the event shows Stacey in the important foreground of the painting and women with the exception of the main speakers daughter, Mary Clarkson, the women are huddled to the right and to the back of the assembled crowd. Stacey was trying to deal with a difficult issue and Rachel Stacey did take a leading role as secretary of the ''London Ladies' Negro Friend Society'', but it was said that the 1840 Anti-Slavery Convention laid the foundations for later fights for the rights of women. In 1841, Forster's wife Dorothy died. In 1842-3 a schism developed in the Society of Friends in

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Iowa Iowa () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States, bordered by the Mississippi River to the east and the Missouri River and Big Sioux River to the west. It is bordered by six states: Wisconsin to the northeast, Illinois to the ...

over the ways that the society should support slavery, which was still an important part of the American economy. A rival meeting house had been created, and a separate burial ground which was separated from the older Quaker burial ground by a mere two feet of space. Four delegates were sent from Britain: Stacey,

Josiah Forster Josiah Forster (1782 – 27 June 1870) was an English teacher and philanthropist. He was an early member of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and John Allen. The group did not manage to heal the divide immediately but it was resolved by 1848.The Anti-Slavery Friends in Salem, Iowa
Lewis D. Savage, accessed 16 July 2008

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stacey, George 1857 deaths 1787 births Quaker abolitionists English abolitionists English Quakers