Zachary Macaulay - Abolitionist

Abolitionist

Macaulay became a member of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, working closely with William Wilberforce, and soon becoming a leading figure in the parliamentary campaign against the slave trade. He later became secretary of the committee, which became known as the African Institution.

His major contribution was to work on the collection and collating of the huge volume of evidence and drafting of reports – a role to which he was ideally suited as a skilled statistician with a meticulous approach and an exceptional head for figures.

He also became a member of the Clapham Sect of evangelical Christian reformers, together with Wilberforce, Henry Thornton and Edward Eliot, and edited their magazine, the Christian Observer, from 1802 to 1816.

In the 1820s Macaulay turned his attention towards securing the total abolition of slavery itself. He helped found the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery (later the Anti-Slavery Society) in 1823, and was editor of its publication, the Anti-Slavery Reporter. Through his incessant hard work and reasoned argument, he helped to lay the foundation for the eventual abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire in 1833.

A fellow of the Royal Society, he was also an active supporter of the British and Foreign Bible Society the Cheap Repository Tracts and the Church Missionary Society.