William Dillwyn (1743,Philadelphia – 28 September 1824) was a British American-bornQuaker of Welsh descent,[1] active in the abolitionist movement incolonial America and after 1774,Great Britain.[2] He was one of the twelve committee members of theSociety for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade when it was formed in 1787.[3]
William was the son of John Dillwyn and Susanna Painter. He attended theFriends' English School of Philadelphia where he was taught byAnthony Benezet.[2] His elder brother was George Dillwyn (1738-1820), the quaker minister.
William Dillwyn was descended from his grandfather, also William Dillwyn who emigrated in 1699 from theBreconshire to settle in theWelsh tract ofPennsylvania.[4]
William married Sarah Logan Smith on 19 May 1768, inBurlington County,New Jersey. Together they had a daughter Susanna, born in New Jersey, on 31 March 1769. She married Samuel Emlen on April 16, 1795.[5]
William remarried on 27 November 1777, to Sarah Weston inTottenham, then inMiddlesex. Their children were:
Through his sonLewis Weston Dillwyn and his wife, Mary Adams of Penllergaer, Llangyfelach, he was the grandfather of noted photographerJohn Dillwyn Llewelyn (1810–1882), MP for SwanseaLewis Llewelyn Dillwyn (1814-1892) and pioneering female photographerMary Dillwyn (1816-1906).
His great granddaughter by his grandson John was the Welsh astronomer and pioneer in scientific photographyThereza Dillwyn Llewelyn, and his great granddaughters by his grandson Lewis were the novelist and industrialistAmy Dillwyn and lepidopteristMary De la Beche Nicholl.[6]
Dillwyn Street,Ipswich is named after him. His son-in-law, Richard Dykes Alexander stipulated that some street names should commemorate leading abolitionists when he provided the land for the development of which this road was a part.[7]
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