Black and British: A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

by David Olusoga

But in the 1820s the faithful were increasingly more radical than their leaders. Clarkson reported that everywhere he went the demand for immediate abolition was growing and faith in gradualism fading. The most eloquent and compelling of the advocates of ‘immediatism’ were women and the most dynamic of them was Elizabeth Heyrick, a Quaker schoolteacher from Leicester. In 1824 she wrote a pamphlet entitled Immediate, not Gradual Abolition. Heyrick was almost as critical of the abolitionist establishment as she was of the West India planters, rounding upon the abolitionist establishment for its lack of moral fervour.