Mary Lloyd or Mary Hornchurch (12 March 1795 – 25 January 1865) was a

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies. ** Britishness, the British identity and common culture * British English, ...

joint secretary of the first Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, founded as the

Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves The Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, also known as the Birmingham and West Bromwich Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, was founded in Birmingham, England, on 8 April 1825. It was the first anti-slavery societ ...

Life

Mary Hornchurch was born in Falmouth in 1795 into a Quaker family. Her mother was a minister in the Society of Friends and her father was a cooper. Mary's mother died whilst she was a child and she quickly became the carer for her father when he became ill until her died in 1818. Mary was cared for by friends until she married Samuel Lloyd (1795–1862) on 12 November 1823. Samuel was to support his wife as she campaigned against slavery. In 1823, the Anti-Slavery Society was founded. Members included Lloyd, Jane Smeal, Elizabeth Pease, Joseph Sturge,

Thomas Clarkson Thomas Clarkson (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846) was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (also known ...

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, Henry Brougham,

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and

Anne Knight Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie. Anne is sometimes used as a male name in th ...

Lucy Townsend Lucy Townsend (née Jesse; 25 July 1781 – 20 April 1847) was a British abolitionist. She started the first Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in Birmingham, UK, titled the Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves. Although slavery had ...

founded the first Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

, West Midlands, on 8 April 1825. She and Lloyd were the first joint secretaries of what was at first called the Birmingham and West Bromwich Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, also known as Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, and around 1830, it became the Female Society for Birmingham. Other founding members included

Sophia Sturge Sophia Sturge (1849–1936) was a British Quaker suffragist, social reformer and peace campaigner who carried out activities in opposition to World War I. Life Sturge was born in Edgbaston, Birmingham, England on 5 January 1849. She was the fi ...

and Sarah Wedgewood. By 1831, there were over seventy similar anti-slavery organisations.Women's Anti-Slavery Organisations
Spartacus Educational, Retrieved 30 July 2015 Townsend's organisation was publicised in America and it became a role model for similar organisations in the USA.Clare Midgley, ‘Townsend , Lucy (1781–1847)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 30 July 2015
/ref> Whilst she was in Birmingham she started an organisation to assist

deaf-mute Deaf-mute is a term which was used historically to identify a person who was either deaf and used sign language or both deaf and could not speak. The term continues to be used to refer to deaf people who cannot speak an oral language or have som ...

s with Lucy Townsend. Lloyd continued as Honorary secretary when Townsend resigned when she moved to Thorpe in Nottinghamshire in 1836. Townsend remained as a committee member and Lloyd was secretary and later treasurer in the 1840s. In 1841 she became a minister in the Society of Friends and this required her to speak and travel around England. For many years these anti-slavery organisations, that were run by women, were dismissed as of marginal interest, but recent research has revealed that these groups had a distinct and national impact. These organisations were frequently more radical and they introduced new methods of raising awareness and pressure. These organisations organised campaigns to not purchase sugar and other products of slaves.Clare Midgley, ‘Lloyd , Mary (1795–1865)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Sept 201
accessed 30 July 2015
/ref> Lloyd died in

Wood Green Wood Green is a suburban district in the borough of Haringey in London, England. Its postal district is N22, with parts in N8 or N15. The London Plan identifies it as one of the metropolitan centres in Greater London, and today it forms a m ...

in 1865.

Legacy

Lloyd and her husband were buried in the grounds of the Quaker meeting house in Bull Street in Birmingham. There remains were later moved but there is a plaque to their memory at the meeting house.Quaker Trail in Birmingham
Retrieved 5 August 2015

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lloyd, Mary 1795 births 1865 deaths People from Falmouth, Cornwall British abolitionists