William Dillwyn, a co-ordinator of the British abolitionist and anti-slavery campaign, was born in Pennsylvania in 1743 and lived in Walthamstow (Blackhorse Lane) from 1777 until his death in 1824.
A devout Quaker, William was taught at school by Anthony Benezet, who started the campaign in North America to abolish the Atlantic slave trade. He grew up to become Benezet’s close friend and assistant, travelling to Carolina plantations, to observe and record slavery and the slave trade in all its horror and lobbying the legislature for an end to the brutality.
Having witnessed the true nature of slavery first hand, Dillwyn travelled several times to Britain as Benezet’s emissary to the great and the good, such as Queen Charlotte and John Wesley, campaigning against the British law that enabled the slave trade to operate.
He was sent on a mission to London in 1774, carrying a letter from Benezet to Anglican Minister Granville Sharp that started the organisation of the abolitionist movement in Great Britain. Dillwyn’s knowledge and experience enabled the leaders of the abolitionist movement in Britain to understand slavery in North America.
Official Medallion of the British Anti-Slavery Society designed by Josiah Wedgwood 1795.
It was on his 1774 visit to Britain, that William became engaged to his cousin in London, Sarah Weston, the daughter and heiress of prominent Quaker, Lewis Weston, a wealthy businessman who owned the High Hall estate in Walthamstow (now called Higham Hill). In 1777, as the War of Independence raged, William asked General George Washington to grant him a letter of safe passage, so that he could travel through the American army’s lines to sail from New York to London to marry Sarah.
Painting of a Quaker woman named Sarah, possibly Sarah ‘Sally’ Weston
They were married at the Friends House at High Cross, Tottenham, a hotbed of abolitionist campaigning in the late 18th and 19th century. The couple set up home in Higham Lodge on the south side of Blackhorse Lane, (now 106-108 Blackhorse Lane) on Sarah’s father’s High Hall estate which she later inherited.
Higham Lodge in 1977. It was demolished in the 1980s despite being a listed building. Credit: G. Holt
Dillwyn was visited at Higham Lodge by Thomas Clarkson to learn about slavery and William recruited him to the anti-slavery cause. Clarkson went on to become one of the leading public faces of the campaign against slavery. Clarkson is also credited with recruiting William Wilberforce MP, the leader of the abolitionist movement in parliament.
In 1783, Dillwyn co-wrote and published a tract entitled: ‘The case of our fellow creatures, the oppressed Africans, respectfully recommended to the serious consideration of the legislature of Great Britain by the people called Quakers’. Credit: Library
Dillwyn was the driving force behind the ‘Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade’, when it was formed in 1787, which submitted the first anti-slavery petition to parliament. Dillwyn travelled far and wide across Britain making many speeches and his pamphlets were sent to every magistrate, school and clergyman in the country.
William Dillwyn made an enormous contribution to the campaign that resulted in the passing of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, which abolished the slave trade in the British colonies and made it illegal to carry enslaved people in British ships.
Dillwyn continued to campaign against slavery after the passing of the 1807 Act, for the rest of his lifetime.
Dillwyn and his wife Sarah raised eight children at Higham Lodge and he set up a prosperous cooper business in Walthamstow with his father-in-law. William Dillwyn died at Higham Lodge in 1824 and he is buried in the Friends Burial Ground in Tottenham.
Stephen Ayers is a member of Waltham Forest History and Heritage Network. He is also a tour guide and historical researcher researching the history of Walthamstow Wetlands and water supply in East London, the River Lea and the Lea Valley. He is known on social media as ‘Wetlands Steve’ and can be followed on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram or via his website.
