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About Priscilla Buxton London Female Anti-Slavery Society
Letter from Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton to his daughter Priscilla, written six weeks after emancipation, regarding his future work in Parliament; letter from Priscilla to her aunt giving extracts from all of her father's letters from London on the slavery question. The letters are dated 1824-1834.
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Priscilla Buxton, London Female Anti-Slavery Society, Houses of Parliament
Priscilla Buxton (1808-52) was the daughter of the abolitionist MP Thomas Fowell Buxton (1786-1845), and a leading abolitionist campaigner in her own right.
Priscilla was the eldest child of Thomas and Hannah (nee Gurney). She lived at this address between 1808-1815 where she acted as her father’s principal advisor and assistant, compiling information and helping his draft speeches and pamphlets. (The family moved to Norfolk in 1820 after a few years living at Hampstead).
Pricilla Buxton was a major activist in the national women’s’ anti-slavery campaign. In 1832 she became the co-secretary of the London Female Anti-Slavery Society, and in the following year she helped organise the women’s’ anti-slavery petition, which contained 187,000 signatures. Her marriage to the abolition MP Andrew Johnston was arranged for 1 August 1834, the day that the abolition of slavery in British colonies was due to come into effect.
source http://archive.museumoflondon.org.uk/LSS/Map/Resistance/People/48.htm
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Buxton [married name Johnston], Priscilla (1808–1852), slavery abolitionist, was born on 25 February 1808 at Earlham Hall, near Norwich, the eldest of the eight children of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, first baronet (1786–1845), brewer, MP, and leading anti-slavery campaigner, and Hannah (1783–1872), the daughter of John Gurney of Earlham Hall and his wife, Catherine Bell (d. 1792). She had seven younger siblings—including the politician Charles Buxton (1822–1871)—of whom four died in infancy or childhood. Her father was from an Anglican background, while her mother was from a very prominent Quaker family, whose members included anti-slavery campaigner John Joseph Gurney (1788–1847) and prison reformer Elizabeth Fry (1780–1845). Priscilla Buxton lived with her family at their successive homes in London (1808–15), in Hampstead (1815–20), at Cromer Hall, near Cromer, Norfolk (1820–28), and then at Northrepps Hall, near Cromer (1828–34).
Priscilla Buxton's historical importance lies in her activities as an anti-slavery campaigner. Until her marriage in 1834, she acted as her father's main confidante and assistant during the period when he was leader of the parliamentary campaign for the abolition of British colonial slavery. She recommenced her help soon after her marriage, acting as her father's assistant during his leadership of the African Civilisation Society (1839–43), through which he sought to combat the continuation of the Atlantic slave trade by promoting ‘legitimate’ commerce with west Africa. She compiled information and helped him draft speeches and pamphlets, persuading him to follow her suggestions for substantial revisions to the draft of The Remedy (1840), his book promoting the activities of the society. She also co-operated with her father in supporting educational work by missionaries in South Africa, the West Indies, and Mauritius. Fellow anti-slavery campaigner Sir George Stephen later recalled that she was:
like a guardian angel to him. She acted as his secretary, his librarian, his comforter, and often as his adviser and guide; of her I witnessed, with surprise and admiration, the promptitude of perception with which she comprehended a perplexity, and suggested a solution. (Stephen, 197) Priscilla Buxton was also an important activist in her own right, promoting national female anti-slavery initiatives. In 1832 she became co-secretary of the London Female Anti-Slavery Society and in 1833 she was involved in organizing the national ladies' anti-slavery petition to parliament: her name, together with that of Amelia Opie (1769–1853), headed the list of 187,000 signatories. The petition was presented to both houses: she described how it needed two men to carry each of the rolls of signatures, which ‘were like two great feather beds’ and which were presented ‘among loud laughing and cheers’ (P. Buxton to S. M. Buxton, 16 May 1833, Oxford, Rhodes House, Buxton MSS). It was the largest anti-slavery petition ever presented to parliament and its presentation was carefully timed to coincide with the debate which was to mark the successful culmination of the parliamentary anti-slavery campaign.
Priscilla Buxton married Andrew Johnston (1798–1862) on 1 August 1834, the date when the act emancipating slaves in the British colonies came into force. Johnston, MP for St Andrews, was a close parliamentary ally of Thomas Fowell Buxton, supporting his anti-slavery campaigns until both were defeated in the 1837 general election. Thereafter the Johnstons spent some time at Renny Hill in Fife, before moving south to Halesworth in Suffolk, when Andrew Johnston became a banker in the Gurney family bank in the county. The couple had at least four children, including Andrew Johnston (1835–1895), Liberal MP for the southern division of Essex from 1868 to 1874. She died on 18 June 1852.
Clare Midgley Sources P. M. Pugh, introduction, Calendar of the papers of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1786–1845 (1980) · G. Stephen, Anti-slavery recollections: in a series of letters, addressed to Mrs Beecher Stowe (1854), 197 · C. Buxton, Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, baronet, with selections from his correspondence (1848) · R. H. Mottram, Buxton the liberator (1946) · The letters of William Lloyd Garrison, ed. W. M. Merrill and L. Ruchames, 1 (1971), 233 · Burke, Peerage (1889)
Archives Bodl. RH, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton MSS
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Priscilla Buxton London Female Anti-Slavery Society's Timeline
| 1808 |
February 25, 1808
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Cromer, Norfolk, England, United Kingdom
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| 1837 |
May 1, 1837
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Devonshire Street, London, Greater London, England, United Kingdom
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| 1841 |
1841
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England (Suffolk, Halesworth)
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| 1852 |
June 18, 1852
Age 44
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London, United Kingdom
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