Quakers: Keeping on their Hats, in Tewkesbury

“On a national scale, the Quakers had questioned slavery from the early days of the movement and openly denounced it and campaigned against it from 1688. In 1727 the British Yearly Meeting of the Quakers formerly forbade any member from owning or trading in slaves on pain of expulsion from the Society of Friends. In 1787 the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed and nine of the twelve founders were Quakers. The Society was essentially the same organisation that eventually achieved abolition under Wilberforce. The Society of Friends in Tewkesbury actively supported anti-slavery candidates in elections. In the 1792 General Election, the Quaker John Milliard, a clockmaker, promoted such a candidate, Naval Captain Thomas Lloyd.”