Self-guided tour: Voices from Abney Park - Abolitionists
Stoke Newington and the Quakers, separately and together, played a prominent role in the abolition of slavery. A number of key figures, who opposed abduction and enslavement and sought to establish various visions of a better world during the eighteenth and nineteenth century, are laid to rest in Abney Park Cemetery.
Alan Gartrell discusses the links with Abney Park and the world’s first Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. Read the article.
Gartrell also gives an audio talk on Abney Park’s links to Abolitionist history and to slave narratives.
Listen to the podcast.
Take this self-guided tour of Abney’s abolitionists
Self-guided tour:
Entering at the Stoke Newington High Street entrance, the first site of interest is the grave of Rev Aaron Buzacott (1829–81). Walk up the main avenue, take the South Boundary Road on the far left and then take the path on the first right (Yew Walk). Here you’ll find the Rev Buzacott’s final resting place [Yew Walk, S/L9]. Rev Buzacott was the second Secretary of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (subsequently known as Anti-Slavery International). With slavery abolished in North America in 1865, he continued to carry out research and publish work with Joseph Cooper designed to help abolish slavery elsewhere, particularly in the Middle East, Turkey and Africa.
Return and continue along South Boundary Road, where you will find the grave of the bookseller, poet and author, Josiah Conder [Map ref 1] (17 September 1789–27 December 1855) and his wife, Joan Elizabeth née Thomas (1785–1877) [South Boundary Road A, N Ranks/M9]. Josiah Conder's political work included a tract on the superior value of free labour over slave labour. In 1839 he became a founding Committee Member of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. In this role he was an organiser of, and delegate to, the world's first Anti-Slavery Convention, which was held in London in 1840 – an event depicted in a large painting by Benjamin Haydon that hangs in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josiah_Conder_(editor_and_author) - accessed: 12/06/20]
Continue along South Boundary Road until you reach Abney House Corner. Here you will find the grave of Rev Dr Thomas Binney [2] (1798–1874) [Abney House Corner, S/N7]. Binney was affectionately known as the Archbishop of Nonconformity. He was an active member of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and chaired an event at the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840. Thomas Binney assisted the African-American abolitionist Samuel Ringgold Ward by providing him with contacts when he came to Britain and later became the biographer of Sir Thomas Foxwell Buxton, a leading parliamentary abolitionist. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Binney - accessed: 12/06/20]
At the tip of Abney House Corner, you will locate the resting place of Rev Samuel Oughton [3] (1803–December 1881). Oughton worked for the Baptist Missionary Society in Jamaica between 1836 and 1866 and was an abolitionist who became an outspoken advocate of black labour rights in Jamaica during the gradual abolition of slavery in the late 1830s and was imprisoned in 1840 for his outspoken views. Oughton managed to pass his descriptions of the horrendous labour practices suffered by Africans in Jamaica onto Joseph Sturge of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and they continued to communicate whilst he was in prison. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Oughton - accessed 12/06/20]
On the right side of Abney House Corner, take the path on your right (Road E). Here lies Rev Dr Alexander Fletcher, ‘The Prince of Preachers to Children’ (1787–1860) [Road E, N/N16]. Fletcher is widely acknowledged as the pioneer of preaching to audiences of children and attracting large crowds of young people to nonconformist chapels. He is the author of numerous devotional works and the founder of the Finsbury Chapel in London. Fletcher is also noted for his support of missionary work and for the abolition of slavery in the United States and has associations with Moses Roper and Frederick Douglass. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fletcher_(minister) - accessed: 12/06/20]
On the same path you can find the graves of Rev Dr John Morison [4](1791–1859) and Rev Dr John Campbell [5] (1795–1867) [Road E, N/N6]. John Morison became one of the principal representatives of Congregationalism in London, during the mid-nineteenth century, and a committee member of the London Missionary Society. He was one of the three London Missionary Society committee members to whom the escaped slave Moses Roper brought a letter of introduction on his arrival to Britain, seeking assistance and patronage to pursue his object of promoting the cause of emancipation and abolition. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Morison_(pastor) - accessed: 12/06/20]
John Campbell was the Minister at Whitefield’s Tabernacle and was a stickler for orthodoxy. He is known to have attended the London Reception Speech of the escaped American slave, Frederick Douglass, held at the Rev Dr Alexander Fletcher’s Finsbury Chapel in May 1846, where he was called on to provide the ‘Reply’ on behalf of the assembled dissenting ministers.
[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Campbell_(minister) - accessed: 12/06/20]
Continue down Road E and bear right onto Dr Watts’ Walk. Here you will find the grave of Samuel Morley [6] (1809–1886) on the left-hand side [Dr Watts Walk, W/M6]. MP for Nottingham and for Bristol, he was a worker for nonconformist emancipation and endowed Morley College for adult education. Morley was a supporter of abolitionism and became treasurer of the fund to finance Josiah Henson, an escaped American slave, who was given support in Britain.
[Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Morley_(MP) - accessed: 12/06/20]
Walk slightly further up Dr Watts’ Walk to find the grave of Rev Dr John Pye-Smith [7] (1774-1851) on the right-hand side [Dr Watts’ Walk, E/L6]. A Congregationalist theologian and scholar, John Pye-Smith worked throughout his life for the abolition of slavery. He took over the editorship of the Sheffield Iris, the leading abolitionist newspaper in the North of England, during the imprisonment of its editor, his friend, James Montgomery. Later, in 1830, Pye-Smith was Chair of the Board of Congregational Ministers when it passed an anti-slavery motion to secure support from all Congregational chapels across the country in petitioning parliament. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pye-Smith - accessed: 12/06/20]
Continue up Dr Watts’ Walk and look on the left-hand side to see the gravestone for Joanna Vassa. Joanna Vassa is the daughter of the West African prince and writer Olaudah Equiano, who wrote a passionate and influential account of the wrongs of the Transatlantic slave trade from his own experience and campaigned tirelessly to bring an end to slavery.
Reaching Sir Isaac Watts’ monument, on your right, you will see the grave of Rev Dr John Hoppus [8] (1789–1875) an English Congregational minister, author, Fellow of the Royal Society, abolitionist and educational reformer. Hoppus chaired the Board of Congregational Ministers in 1830 when it passed the following anti-slavery resolution: "That it is the fixed a unanimous opinion of this meeting that of all the rights common to man, those of the person are the most sacred and inviolable; that therefore a state of slavery is a positive, entire, and extreme evil, the nature of which cannot be altered by any meliorating circumstances; that it is, in its mildest forms, destructive of human life, social intercourse, moral character, and intellectual advancement... that this body have always sympathised with the exertions made to abate and abolish this enormous evil..." [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hoppus - accessed: 12/06/20]
Back at Sir Isaac Watts’ monument, turn left (along Tyler Path) and then turn left onto Lion’s Road. When you reach the fork in the path, go up the other side onto Pennington Road. Walk up until just before the first right-hand turning (Wilson Road). Here you will come across the graves of Rev Newman Hall (1816-1902) [Road H, S/13] and Rev James Sherman (1792-1862) [Road H, S/H3]. Both men were closely associated with abolitionists in the US, working with Josiah Henson and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Sherman was one of the Founder-trustees of the Abney Park Cemetery Company, 1838-62.
Continue up the road you are on and take the third path on your right (Adelph Path). Walk along this path, crossing the Great Elm Walk, over to Mather Path and continue walking beyond the junction with Little Elm Walk for a short time. On your left you will see the grave of Rev Thomas Burchell (1799–1846). Burchell was a leading Baptist missionary and slavery abolitionist in Montego Bay, Jamaica. He was among an early group of missionaries who went out to Jamaica from London in response to a request from African Baptists on the island. There he established churches and schools to aid the slaves. Anticipating abolition of slavery, he helped raise funds in Great Britain to acquire land for freedmen after they were emancipated, and to develop Free Villages. [Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Burchell - accessed: 12/06/20]
At the end of Mather Path, turn left onto Tietjen Road and continue for a short time. On your left is the gravestone of Thomas Canry Caulker. He is the Sherbro-born son of the King of Bompey, whose father forged an agreement with Britain to suppress the slave trade.
From where you are standing, walk back down the way you came until you get to the junction. Take a left onto Swayne Path and walk back down to the High Street exit – completing your tour of Abney Abolitionists.
[Grave locations source: A Guide to Abney Park Cemetery, by Paul Joyce, 1994]
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