Home » Travel » Leicestershire » Elizabeth Heyrick

Elizabeth Heyrick

© Elizabeth Batt

Elizabeth Heyrick was born in Leicester in 1769. Her father, John Coltman was a devout Unitarian. Unitarians believed that someone's behaviour was caused by social environment and not caused by religion.
They advocated democracy and campaigned for social reform.

Being raised within this type of environment, Elizabeth was soon introduced to the ideas of 'Tom Paine.' Paine wrote several articles advocating the abolition of slavery and he also argued for American independence.

In 1787, Elizabeth married John Heyrick a Methodist lawyer. The couple remained childless and eight years later John Heyrick died. Elizabeth moved back home with her parents and had already by this time become a member of the 'Society of Friends' - later to become known as Quaker's.

Elizabeth devoted herself to social reform. She campaigned against bull-baiting and became a prison visitor. She wrote eighteen pamphlets on various subjects including one on the 'Corn Laws.'
The Corn Law in Britain had first been introduced in 1804. Landowners, seeking to protect their profits imposed a duty on imported corn. Due to the Napoleonic Wars, corn had been impossible to export from Europe thus ensuring an expansion of British wheat farming. All which led to higher bread prices.

Elizabeth's priority however, lay with the campaign against slavery. Committed to her goal, she organized a sugar boycott in Leicester and helped to form the 'Birmingham Ladies' Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves,' later to be renamed, 'The Female Society for Birmingham.'

In 1824, Elizabeth published a pamphlet, 'Immediate not Gradual Abolition.' In this pamphlet she argued in favor of an immediate end to slavery in the British Colonies. This argument differed from that of the 'Anti-Slavery Society' who advocated gradual abolition. William Wilberforce who was totally opposed to any woman being involved in any type of anti-slavery campaigns, delivered instructions to the leaders of the Anti-Slavery Society, to suppress any information contained in Elizabeth's pamphlet.

However, most of the womens' anti-slavery groups in Britain supported Heyrick's call and in 1830 when Elizabeth was the leader of the 'Female Society for Birmingham,' a network of women's groups distributed and discussed her pamphlet all over the country.

In 1830, The Female Society for Birmingham submitted a resolution to the National Conference of the Anti-Slavery Society, asking the society to campaign for an immediate end to slavery. Heyrick attempted to enforce it, by threatening to withdraw funding to the Anti-Slavery Society in hopes of persuading this male dominated society to support the resolution.