Moncure Conway and the Abolition of Slavery

Moncure Daniel Conway (1832-1907), born in Virginia, son of a slave owning family, was a significant American abolitionist who campaigned internationally for the abolition of the slave trade and personally liberated his father's slaves at their request in 1862 during the Civil War. Conway had originally been educated for religious ministry as a Methodist at Dickinson College followed by a period of study at Harvard Divinity School, but was expelled from both the Methodist and the Unitarian churches due to his anti-slavery views. In 1863, having been threatened by pro-slavery mobs and seeing no prospects to stop the war, Conway went to London, England upon the advice friends and other abolitionists, where he continued his anti-slavery and anti-war work there and on the Continent. Conway spent forty years in London in total and became one of the principal lecturers at South Place Ethical Society, whose home Conway Hall, is named in his honour.

DR ELLEN RAMSAY is a former lecturer in art history at the University of British Columbia and York University (Canada) and has been writing on both history and art history for twenty years. She has published on a broad range of topics including Canadian, American and European art, Women's Rights, European and North American history, the Enlightenment, Secularism and Atheism. Much of her work in the last 12 years has been inspired by South Place Ethical Society and its history, with recent works published by the Freethought History Research Group and The Thomas Paine Society.

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