Protestant Reformation Society

George Bourne (1780–1845) was a 19th-century American abolitionist and editor, credited as the first public proclaimer of "immediate emancipation without compensation" of American slaves.

George was born on June 13, 1780 in Westbury, Wiltshire, England. In 1804 he migrated to New York and became the editor and co-owner of the Baltimore Daily Gazette in 1806. He migrated in 1810 to Virginia and became a Presbyterian minister. In 1816, he wrote and printed at home The Book and Slavery Irreconcilable by a citizen of Virginia. In his journalistic career, he wrote over twenty-two books including biographies of Rev John Wesley and Napoleon Bonaparte. His book on Thomas Jefferson and his Presidency has been lost. He was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society and worked fervently at developing an American Protestant alliance of churches. He also was the editor of various publications dealing with anti-slavery and poperism, most notably the Christian Intelligencer at the time of his death in New York City on November 20, 1845.

George Bourne descended from an ancestral line embracing some of the names illustrious as martyrs and confessors in the first annals of the Reformation and the era succeeding, and to be early placed under decided religious influences, and among favorable religious associations. His father, Samuel Bourne, was for thirty years a deacon of the Congregational Church at Westbury. His mother was Mary Rogers, a lineal descendant of John Rogers, the Proto-martyr in the reign of persecuting Queen Mary, and who was the gifted translator and editor of the Bible which he published under the nom de plume of "Thomas Matthews", supplementing and completing the work of Tyndale and Coverdale.

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