Joseph Sturge
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Joseph Sturge (1793 - May 14, 1859), son of a farmer in Gloucestershire, was an English Quaker and founder of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, now Anti-Slavery International, who spent his life engaged in radical political actions supporting pacifism, working class rights, and the universal emancipation of slaves. In Jamaica, Joseph Sturge helped to found the free village of Sturge Town.
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[edit] Links with Birmingham
Joseph Sturge went to Birmingham in 1822. A member of the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers), Joseph Sturge refused, in his business as a corn factor, to deal in grain used in the manufacture of spirits. In Birmingham he was appointed an alderman in 1835. He opposed to the building of the Birmingham Town Hall on account of his conscientious objection to the performance of sacred oratorio.
[edit] Campaign Against Apprenticeship
After legislation for the statutory abolition of slavery in the British dominions was enacted in 1833 (leading eventually to abolition on 1st August 1838) Sturge was one of the main instigators of a campaign of agitation against an almost equally enslaving scheme of indentured apprenticeship, designed by the planters in the West Indies.
This work was supported by Quaker abolitionists such as William Allen and many other prominent abolitionists, including Lord Brougham, who (in a speech to the House of Lords) acknowledged Sturge's central role at that time in rousing British anti-slavery opinion.
In 1834 Sturge and Thomas Harvey sailed to the West Indies to study the apprenticeship system 'apprenticeship', defined by the British Emancipation Act of 1834, and expose it to criticism as an intermediate stage on the route to emancipation. The pair travelled about the West Indies talking directly to apprentices, proprietors, and others directly involved. They visited Antigua and Jamaica, and upon their return they published The West Indies in 1837 which publicised the cruelty and injustice of their system of apprenticeship. Meanwhile, whilst in Jamaica, Sturge had helped to found the Jamaican free village of Sturge Town.
[edit] Founding a New Anti-Slavery Society
In 1837, keen to be free to act independently of the consensus in the Anti-Slavery Society, Sturge founded the 'Central Negro Emancipation Committee'.
More significantly, in 1839, one year after abolition in the British dominions (a time when some members of the Anti-Slavery Society considered their society's work to be completed) he led a small group of members to found a new Anti-Slavery Society - the 'British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society' - based on the ambitious new objective of world-wide emancipation. This society survives until today as Anti-Slavery International, and its work is far from achieved since slavery exists on a large scale in many countries, albeit no longer legally based.
In 1841 Sturge travelled in the United States with the poet Whittier to examine the slavery question there, and publish his findings to promote American abolition.
[edit] Chartism and the Peace Society
On his return to England he gave his support to the Chartist movement, and in 1842 was candidate for Nottingham, but was defeated by John Walter, the proprietor of The Times.
He then took up the cause of peace and arbitration being pioneered by Henry Richards, in support of which he helped found the Peace Society and was influential in the founding the Morning Star in 1855 as a newspaper through which to promote the Peace Society and his other ideas.
[edit] Family and Death
Sturge married, first, in 1834, Eliza, daughter of James Cropper; and, secondly, in 1846, Hannah, daughter of Barnard Dickinson. He died at Edgbaston, Birmingham, on the 14th of May 1859.
[edit] Memorial at Five Ways, Birmingham
A memorial to Sturge (which originally incorporated drinking fountains) was unveiled three years later in front of a crowd of 12,000 on 4th June 1862 at Five Ways on the boundary between Birmingham and Edgbaston. The sculptor was John Thomas, who Sir Charles Barry had employed as stone and wood carver on the former King Edward’s Grammar School at Five Ways. He had also worked on the Palace of Westminster and Balmoral, as well as the reliefs on Windsor and Euston Stations.
Sturge is shown in a pose as if he were teaching, with his right hand resting on the Holy Bible to acknowledge his strong Christian faith. Lower down the plinth, he is flanked by two female allegorical figures. One represents Peace holding a dove and an olive branch, with a lamb at her feet, symbolic of innocence and the other, Charity, comforting and giving succour to two Afro-Caribbean infants, and recalling the fight against slavery. Around the crown of the plinth are inscribed the words Charity, Temperance and Peace, as well as the name of the subject and the date of his death.
In 1925 the memorial had a plaque installed to remind the passer-by who the memorial commemorated, the inscription was as follows:
In 2006/7 the partnership of The Birmingham Civic Society, Birmingham City Council and the Sturge family saw the statue restored in time for the 200th anniversary of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
On 24th March 2007 at 11.00 am there will be a civic ceremony that will formally rededicate the statue and an interpretation board, giving details of his life will be unveiled by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham.
[edit] Further Reading
- Richard, Henry (1864), Memoirs of Joseph Sturge, London: Partridge
- Temperley, Howard (1972), British Anti-Slavery 1733-1870, London: Longman
- Tyrrell, Richard (1987), Joseph Sturge and the Moral Radical Party in Victorian Britain, London: Helm
[edit] External links
- Works by Joseph Sturge at Project Gutenberg
- The Joseph Sturge Monument - A photo essay on the history of his statue in Birmingham.
- The Birmingham Civic Society
This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
