Mary Anne Rawson
| Mary Anne Rawson | |
|---|---|
Rawson in 1840.
|
|
| Born |
Mary Anne Read 1801 Sheffield |
| Died | 1887 |
| Residence | Wincobank Hall |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Campaigner |
| Known for | Abolitionism |
| Parent(s) | Joseph and Elizabeth Reid |
Mary Anne Rawson (1801–1887) was an abolitionist. She was a campaigner with the Tract Society, the British and Foreign Bible Society, Italian nationalism, Child labour, but above all anti-slavery. She was first involved with a Sheffield group who successfully campaigned for people to boycott sugar from the West Indies, as it was produced by slave labor. She is pictured attending the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840.
Mary Anne Read was born to Joseph and Elizabeth Read, wealthy parents who encouraged her involvement with good causes. Her abiding interest from the mid-1820s to the 1850s was to lead the campaign for anti-slavery in the Sheffield area. Rawson was a founding member in 1825 of the Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society, which campaigned for the rights of the slaves in the British Empire. The Sheffield society was the first Anti-Slavery Society to campaign not for a gradual and managed end, but an immediate end to slavery. By lectures and pamphlets, the society successfully boycotted to decrease sales of West Indian goods produced by slaves, such as coffee and sugar. Following passage of the abolition legislation, the society formally ended in 1833.
In 1837 Rawson became secretary of the Sheffield Ladies Association for the Universal Abolition of Slavery, which continued the case for enslaved workers across the world. The anti-slavery organisations run by women were first started by Lucy Townsend and they were sometimes dismissed as of marginal interest, but recent research has revealed that these groups had a national impact.
Rawson corresponded with figures such as George Thompson in Britain as well as Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison in the United States. Her visitors included Lord Shaftesbury and William Wilberforce. With her mother Elizabeth Read as treasurer, Rawson was prominent in the Sheffield Female Anti-Slavery Society. Her father Joseph Read owned a business involved in the smelting of precious metals.
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