Regency Personalities Series
In my attempts to provide us with the details of the Regency, today I continue with one of the many period notables.
Thomas Fowell Buxton
April 7 1786-February 19 1845
Buxton was born at Castle Hedingham, Essex. His mother was a Quaker an he became friends with Joseph John Gurney, and Gurney’s sister Elizabeth Fry. Buxton then married their sister Hannah in May of 1807.
In 1808 his family connections got him work at the Brewery of Truman, Hanbury & Company in Spitalfields London. (His mother was a Hanbury.) In 1811 he was made a partner in the business and Buxton was added to the firm name. Later he would become sole owner.
He was COE but he attended Friends meetings with his wife’s family. He became involved in the social reform movement. He raised money for the weavers who were facing poverty from modernization, and he supported his sister-in-laws work on prison reform with financial support. He was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in 1818. He supported Elizabeth Fry now in Parliament in her work and also for the Abolition of Slavery helping another Sister-in-law, Louisa Gurney Hoare. He had eight children with Hannah, losing four in a five week period to whooping cough.
While the Slave Trade had been abolished in 1807, Slavery still existed. Buxton was a founder of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, later the Anti-Slavey Society, in 1823. He took over the role that William Wilberforce had played when Wilberforce retired.
Buxton also was the founding chairman of the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Slavery was abolished in 1833, and Buxton remained in Parliament until 1837. Following the abolishment in the British Empire, Buxton turned his sights to abolishing Slavery in the world and urged the government to work towards those ends.
The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840 by Benjamin Robert Haydon
David Livingstone followed Buxtons philosophy on this and promoted legitimate trade to replace the slave trade. Buxton became a missionary in Africa in support of his cause. In 1840 Buxton was made a Baronet, but his health was failing, possibly due to the African expedition. He died in 1845 and there is a monument to him in Westminster Abbey.
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