George Thompson (abolitionist)

George Thompson
1851 daguerreotype
Born	(1804-06-18)18 June 1804 Liverpool, England
Died	7 October 1878(1878-10-07) (aged 74) Leeds, England
Nationality	British
Occupation	Abolitionist, activist, politician

George Donisthorpe Thompson (18 June 1804 – 7 October 1878) was a British antislavery orator and activist who worked towards the abolition of slavery through lecture tours and legislation while serving as a Member of Parliament. He was arguably one of the most important abolitionists and human rights lecturers in the United Kingdom and the United States.

Early life

Thompson had little formal education and was largely self-taught. In early adulthood, he began a life of professional activism, starting with his role in founding a mutual improvement society at the age of eighteen, as well as his membership in debate societies. This suggests an early interest in self-betterment and the issues of the day. His father worked aboard a slave trading vessel, and his stories of the horrors of the slave trade planted the issue in the younger Thompson’s mind from an early age. He recalls the stories that his father told in some of his later writings, recounting his father’s observations of the inhumane treatment of slaves.^[1]

Activism in England

George Thompson

Initially, Thompson had little knowledge of slavery, though he had gained a reputation as an able orator. He was hired by the society to try to get slavery immediately abolished on moral and religious grounds, a concept called "immediatism." He quickly took up the dissemination of the Society's creed: "To uphold slavery is a crime before God, and the condition must, therefore, be immediately abolished." In 1832 he travelled to Scotland, where he gained an interest in the abolition of slavery in the United States and other parts of the world. While in Scotland he also met William Lloyd Garrison who would remain a lifelong friend and colleague, as well as Nathaniel Paul, an African American abolitionist.

Thompson was invited by Garrison to visit New-England and this proposal was not only accepted by his supporters in Glasgow but the Edinburgh Emancipation Society was formed in order that it too could back Thompson's journey.^[2] From 1836-1847 he was active in every major anti-slavery debate in Britain, including the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London on 12 July 1840.^[3] In 1847 was elected to the British House of Commons, as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Tower Hamlets.^[1]

Thompson was also an advocate of East Indian reform, free trade, Chartism, nonresistance, and the peace movement. However, he was most prominent in his work to eliminate slavery at home and abroad, often protesting legislation that offered limited or gradual restriction on slavery. Favoring a quick and decisive emancipation of all slaves, he was ultimately unsatisfied with the British Emancipation Act ves to work as apprentices for six years after their "liberation." He, therefore, used his position in Parliament to push for additional legislation.^[4]

Thompson’s return to the United States in 1850 was brought about by the Fugitive Slave Law, and he was this time quite popular among proponents of abolitionism, now that the movement had increased in size and influence as the 1850s wore on.

In 1859, his son in law, Frederick William Chesson and Thompson founded the London Emancipation Society which strongly supported the Union side in the American Civil War.^[5]

During this final visit in 1864, he allied with William Wells Brown in advocating the destruction of slavery. He also met Abraham Lincoln, and both supported and witnessed the final destruction of the Confederacy at Fort Sumter in 1865.^[1]

British India Society

He was involved in the setting up of British India Society in 1839.^[6] He was also the President of the Bengal British India Society, which was established in 1843.^[7]

Return to England

Thompson became ill and traveled back to his home country, where he died in 1878. While his advocacy of abolitionism went relatively unnoticed after his death, his efforts to effect a worldwide abolitionist movement cannot be ignored. His profession as activist allowed him to make a living by supporting the cause that he cared about, as well as enabling him to make unprecedented steps in freeing enslaved peoples around the world.

Personal life

Thompson had several children who survived to adulthood: Louisa Eliza Spry (m. Frederick Arthur Nosworthy), Amelia Ann Everard (m. Frederick William Chesson), George Herbert (m. Marianne Cronin), and Edith. Another son, named after William Lloyd Garrison, died aged 15. A daughter, named after Elizabeth Pease, died aged 6. ^[8]

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to George Donisthorpe Thompson.

External links

• Works by George Thompson at Project Gutenberg
• Works by or about George Thompson at Internet Archive
•  Lee, Sidney, ed. (1898). "Thompson, George". Dictionary of National Biography. 56. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• The Liberator Files, Items concerning George Thompson from Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
• Thompson Chesson Scrapbooks From the Rare Book and Special Collections Division at the Library of Congress