George Thompson (abolitionist)
| George Thompson | |
|---|---|
1851 daguerreotype
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| Born |
18 June 1804 Liverpool, England |
| Died | 7 October 1878 (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.
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.
As a professional activist, his interest in slavery was awakened by a newspaper advertisement in 1831, calling for men to join the London-based Anti-Slavery Society. 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 traveled 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. 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. In 1847 was elected to the British House of Commons, as a Member of Parliament (MP) for Tower Hamlets.
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