Joseph Sturge | |
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| Born | 2 August 1793 Elberton,Gloucestershire, England |
| Died | 14 May 1859(1859-05-14) (aged 65) Edgbaston,Birmingham, England |
| Monuments | Joseph Sturge memorial |
| Education | Sidcot School |
| Known for | Founded theBritish and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 5, includingSophia Sturge |
| Relatives |
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Joseph Sturge (2 August 1793 – 14 May 1859) was an EnglishQuaker,abolitionist and activist. He founded theBritish and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (nowAnti-Slavery International). He worked throughout his life inRadical political actions supportingpacifism,working-class rights, and the universalemancipation ofslaves. In the late 1830s, he published two books about the apprenticeship system in Jamaica, which helped persuade the British Parliament to adopt an earlier full emancipation date. In Jamaica, Sturge also helped foundFree Villages with theBaptists, to provide living quarters for freed slaves; one was namedSturge Town in his memory.
Born on 2 August 1793, Joseph Sturge was the fourth child in the family of 12 of Joseph Sturge, a farmer inElberton, Gloucestershire, and his wife Mary Marshall, who belonged to theReligious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers).[1] His brothers included John Sturge, who became a manufacturer inBirmingham, andEdmund Sturge.[2] The abolitionist and pacifistSophia Sturge (1795–1845) was his sister, andCharles Gilpin was a nephew.[1][3]
After a year at school inThornbury, Sturge boarded for three years at the QuakerSidcot School. He then farmed with his father, and on his own account.[1] Of pacifist views, he refused in 1813 to serve in the militia.[4]
Failing at first to earn a living as a cornfactor, atBewdley from 1814, Sturge moved toBirmingham in 1822. There he became an importer of grain. Successful in business, with his brother Charles, he built up the company. The Sturges as a family became investors in railways and docks. Joseph from 1831 ceased to be an active partner, leaving operations to Charles, and concentrated on causes and public life.[1] As anabolitionist, he was allied in 1831 withGeorge Stephen in pressing Parliament for immediate legislation against slavery.[5] TheReform Act 1832, in his view, failed to address poverty, and he worked for radical electoral reform.[6]
Sturge was appointed analderman in 1835. He opposed the building of theBirmingham Town Hall, to be used for performances, because of a conscientious objection to religiousoratorios.[7] He became interested in the island of Jamaica and the conditions of its enslaved workers. He visited it several times and witnessed firsthand the horrors ofslavery, as well as the abuses under an apprenticeship system designed to control the labour of all former slaves above the age of six for 12 years. He worked for emancipation and abolition withAfrican-Caribbean and EnglishBaptists.
In 1838, after full emancipation was authorised, Sturge laid the foundation stone to the "Emancipation School Rooms" in Birmingham. Attending were UnitedBaptistSunday School and Baptist ministers of the city. In 1839 his work was honoured by a marble monument in a Baptist mission chapel inFalmouth, Jamaica. It was dedicated to "the Emancipated Sons of Africa".
After legislation for the abolition ofslavery in the British dominions was enacted in 1833, slave-owning planters in theWest Indies lobbied to postpone freedom for adults for twelve years in a form of indenture. Enslaved children under the age of six were emancipated by the new law on 1 August 1834, but older children and adults had to serve a period of bonded labour or "apprenticeship". Sturge led a campaign against this delaying mechanism. He was supported byWilliam Allen,Lord Brougham, and others. In a speech to theHouse of Lords, Brougham acknowledged Sturge's central role at that time in rousing Britishanti-slavery opinion.[7]
In 1834 Sturge sailed to the West Indies to study apprenticeship as defined by theSlavery Abolition Act 1833. He intended to open it to criticism as an intermediate stageen route to emancipation. He travelled throughout the West Indies and talked directly to apprentices, proprietors (planters), and others directly involved. Upon his return to Great Britain, he publishedNarrative of Events since the First of August 1834. In it he cited anAfrican-Caribbean witness, to whom he referred as "James Williams" to protect him from reprisals.[1]
The original statement was signed by two free African-Caribbeans and six apprentices, and was authenticated by an English Baptist ministerThomas Price ofHackney, who wrote the introduction. Following another trip and further study, Sturge publishedThe West Indies in 1837.[1] Both books highlighted the cruelty and injustice of the system of indentured apprenticeship. They reported on the abuse of apprentices, and the way thetreadmill was used in prisons, and by 1840 changes had been made.[8]
While in Jamaica, Sturge worked with theBaptist chapels to foundFree Villages, to create homes for freed slaves when they achieved full emancipation. They planned the communities to be outside the control of planters.[9]
He bought twoplantations on theCaribbean island ofMontserrat,Olveston, andElberton to demonstrate thatslavery was unnecessary.[10]
As a result of Sturge's single-minded campaign, in which he publicised details of the brutality of apprenticeship to shame the British Government, a major row broke out amongst abolitionists. The more radical element were pitted against the government. Although both had the same ends in sight, Sturge and the Baptists, with mainlyNonconformist support, led a successful popular movement for immediate and full emancipation. As a consequence, the British Government moved the date for full emancipation forward to 1 August 1838. They abolished the 12-year intermediary apprenticeship scheme. For many English Nonconformists and African-Caribbean people, 1 August 1838, became recognised as the true date of abolition of slavery in theBritish Empire.[citation needed]
In 1837, keen to act independently of the consensus in theAnti-Slavery Society, Sturge founded the Central Negro Emancipation Committee. More significantly, in 1839, one year after abolition in the British dominions, Sturge led a small group who founded theBritish and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to put an end to slavery worldwide.[1] It continues today asAnti-Slavery International.
The Society's first major activity was to organise theWorld's Anti-Slavery Convention. It was held at theFreemasons' Hall, London, from 12 June 1840. Others were held in 1843 (Brussels) and 1849 (Paris).[11] It attracted delegates from Europe, North America, South Africa and Caribbean countries, as well as the British dominions of Australia and Ireland. It included African-Caribbean delegates fromHaiti and Jamaica (then representing Britain), women activists from the United States, and manyNonconformists.
In 1841 Sturge travelled in the United States with the poetJohn Greenleaf Whittier to examine the slavery question there.[7] On his return he publishedA Visit to the United States in 1841 (1842).[1] On the same visit (22 May), he sawWilliam Jay who was interested in forwarding the peace agenda, by international arbitration.[12]
ThePeace Congress of June 1843 held in London resulted from proposal made by Sturge to theAmerican Peace Society in 1841, intended to propagate the ideas of William Jay. A preliminary meeting was held in London in 1842, and the decision was taken that the Peace Congress should follow directly on from the second Anti-Slavery Convention. Sturge ended up organising both, after the death ofNun Morgan Harry (1800–1842).[13] The Peace Congress took place 22–24 June 1843, and formally was the responsibility of the LondonPeace Society.[14]
The resolution of the Congress mentioned Jay's ideas positively, but laid more weight on those ofWilliam Ladd, who had died in 1841, proposing international institutions to keep the peace.[15]
Sturge was critical of the role ofWilliam Scholefield, theMayor of Birmingham, in the suppression of a chartist meeting in theBull Ring, Birmingham. Schofield had arrived with 60 officers of the newly formedMetropolitan Police, on 4 July 1839. After Schofield read theRiot Act, Sturge held the police were responsible for the escalation of violence that led to theBull Ring Riots, 1838.[16]
In addition to his other commitments, Sturge joined theAnti-Corn Law League early in its existence.[1] During 1842 he began a campaign for "complete suffrage", and had the support of the Christian Chartist pastor Arthur George O'Neill in Birmingham.[17] His movement was based squarely on the middle classes.[6][18] He envisaged a platform that could unite the League and theChartist movement. The League would have nothing to do with it. Sturge had a measure of further Chartist and nonconformist support, but by the end of the year the Chartist leadersWilliam Lovett andFeargus O'Connor had swung against him.[1] O'Connor had supported Sturge's Complete Suffrage Union earlier in the year, before the industrial conflicts of thePlug Riots had hardened his attitude[19] and he began to see Sturge's broadly middle class support as a threat to his leadership position.[20]
Following a dispute over redrafting the People's Charter as a legislative bill, in December 1842 withWilliam Sharman Crawford MP, Sturge walked out of a joint CSU-Chartist delegate conference in Birmingham. Crawford introduced their reform bill to "a small and bored House" in May 1843. The bill was lost by 101 to 32.[20]
In the years 1842–7 Sturge ran three times for Parliament, on his "complete suffrage" platform, without success.[1] In August 1842 he was parliamentary candidate forNottingham, in a by-election.[19] He was defeated byJohn Walter, the proprietor ofThe Times.[21] InNottingham he visited a Sunday School run bySamuel Fox. The idea of teaching not only scripture, but also basic skills such as reading and writing, was taken up by Sturge, who opened a similar school around 1845.[22] In that year he started an Adult School movement, in Birmingham, and took steps in 1847 to spread Sunday (First-Day) Schools among Quakers.[23]
Sturge then contested Birmingham in 1844 as aChartist candidate, in a by-election caused by the death ofJoshua Scholefield. He was strongly supported at the electionhustings, split the liberal vote, but ultimately came bottom of the poll:Richard Spooner [Cons] 2095, William Scholefield [Lib] 1735 and Sturge [Chartist] 346.[24][25] In 1847 he stood once more, forLeeds, in thegeneral election. There he was identified as "Bainesite" — a follower ofEdward Baines — and was campaigning for schooling, with no state involvement, a divisive position in theBritish and Foreign School Society.[26]
Sturge took up the cause of peace and arbitration being pioneered byHenry Richard. He was instrumental in the founding of theMorning Star in 1855[7] as a newspaper through which to promote thePeace Society and his other social ideas.
In 1854 Sturge and two other Quakers,Robert Charleton andHenry Pease, travelled toSaint Petersburg to seeTzar Nicholas I, trying to prevent the outbreak of theCrimean War.[27] In 1856 Sturge and Thomas Harvey visited theGrand Duchy of Finland to investigate the damage caused by theRoyal Navy andFrench Navygunboats, in attacks during the Crimean War.[28] On this trip Sturge boughtRobert Wilhelm Ekman's paintingSunday Morning in a Farmhouse, which was shown in the exhibition of theRoyal Academy of Arts in 1858. The painting was brought back toFinland in 1960.[29]
Sturge married, first, in 1834, Eliza Cropper, sister ofJohn Cropper.[30] After her death, in 1846 he marriedHannah Dickinson, daughter of Barnard Dickinson and his wife Ann Darby, who was granddaughter ofAbraham Darby III; and they had five children, one being the peace campaignerSophia Sturge (1849–1936).[1][31][32] Fellow QuakerStephen Henry Hobhouse wrote a biography in 1919 titledJoseph Sturge, his life and work.[33] Joseph Sturge was a cousin of whaling shipowner, industrialist and philanthropistThomas Sturge.
Sturge died suddenly at his home on Wheeley's Road, inEdgbaston,Birmingham, on 14 May 1859 of heart disease. He was buried in the graveyard at the Friends Meeting House, in Birmingham, England. Rather than a grand public funeral, the family sought a modest event in keeping with their Quaker beliefs; but the mourning procession from the late Sturge's home included forty carriages of friends and family, led by the mayor, Sir John Ratcliff.[34]
TheJoseph Sturge memorial by sculptorJohn Thomas was unveiled on 4 June 1862 atFive Ways.
On 24 March 2007, the city held a civic ceremony to formally rededicate the statue. Randal Brew, the LordMayor of Birmingham, unveiled an interpretation board giving details of Sturge's life. On the same day, ablue plaque (historic marker) was unveiled at the site of his home in Wheeleys Road, Edgbaston.[35]
Sturge Park on the Caribbean island ofMontserrat was named in honour of Joseph Sturge and his son. Also on the island wasElberton, a suburb named after Joseph Sturge’s birthplace.
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Sturge, Joseph".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 1052.
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