12/09/2020
London Metropolitan Archives
London is a city that has been shaped by protest and 1840 saw the culmination of years of campaigns against the Slave Trade in Europe and America.
Taking place in Exeter Hall on the Strand, the World Anti-Slavery Convention lasted 12 days. A convention may not appear as a protest like public demonstrations have, but the Convention was an act of dissent, nonetheless.
In 1832 the government introduced several reform acts, one began the process to abolish slavery in the British Empire. In 1834, all enslaved individuals under six were freed, but the majority still were forced to complete ‘an apprenticeship’ for their former master and in reality the transatlantic slave trade still existed.
Transatlantic networks between Britain and the United States fostered much anti-slavery communication. The American Anti-Slavery Society encouraged ‘warfare against the soul-destroying system of slavery’ and appealed to Britain to create a national campaign against slavery in 1840. So later that year the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society organised the World Anti-Slavery Convention.
Over 500 abolitionists from Canada to Mauritius attended the meeting, attracting around 1,000 daily spectators. American and British women delegates appeared on the first day to take their seats as official delegates but after hours of contentious debate organisers made it clear that the meeting was for ‘gentlemen only’. Women were relegated to the spectators’ gallery.
After leaving the convention, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton resolved to hold their own convention back in America and advocate for women’s rights. Eight years later they hosted the Seneca Falls Convention in New York - the first women's rights convention in the US.
The meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society continued to take place at Exeter Hall and their significance meant the phrase ‘Exeter Hall’ became a metonym for the Anti-Slavery lobby.
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