Redbridge anti-slavery campaigner, Thomas Fowell Buxton MP

In Bristol the statue of Edward Colston, a 17th century slave trader, merchant and philanthropist, was pulled down a fortnight later. Many organisations, museums and public bodies now display notices apologising for their past slavery connections. I would like to highlight a local connection with the anti-slavery movement 200 years ago.

Thomas Fowell Buxton was born in 1786 to affluence, the Fowell family (who had a house at Snaresbrook) and Buxton family (who had a house in Walthamstow) having made their money from whale oil.

His father died when he was six and he spent time under the wing of the local gamekeeper learning about the countryside and gentlemanly pursuits. His mother, Anna née Hanbury, was from a Quaker family which had made a fortune through tobacco but it was with her brothers in the Truman Hanbury Brewery that young Thomas made a career.

He married Hannah Gurney from another leading Quaker family and their Christian ideals of honesty and caring for those less fortunate, as well as his love of trees, was passed through to his grandchildren, Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, third Baronet of Warlies and his brother Edward North Buxton of Knighton.

Drinking Fountain in Victoria Tower Gardens (south of Houses of Parliament): Erected in 1835 by Charles Buxton MP in commemoration of the Emancipation of Slaves 1834 and in memory of his father, Sir T Fowell Buxton and those associated with him Wilberforce, Clarkson, Macaulay, Brougham, Dr Lushington and others (Image: Georgina Green)

Thomas Fowell Buxton entered parliament in 1818 and served as MP for Weymouth until 1837. During this time he actively supported his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Fry, in her work for prison reform. He was involved in many causes such as the establishment of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. However, it was for his work for the abolition of slavery that he was created a baronet, after the passing of the Act in 1834.

As early as 1822 Buxton made a large commitment to the anti-slavery cause and when William Wilberforce retired from the Commons he passed the mantle to Buxton.

Buxton collected information about slavery and his was one of the earliest uses of statistics to help prove his case. On April 15, 1831, Buxton spoke to Parliament saying “my case is this: that the whole slave population is in misery, that the negroes are physically and morally wretched, that slavery, as it exists in our time, is a system baneful to man, his happiness, welfare and moral advancement, and that slavery ought, therefore, to be abolished as soon as it can be done with safety.”

Due to the work of Buxton and others the Slavery Abolition Act was given the Royal Assent and came into force on August 1, 1834. He later turned his attention to the treatment of ex-slaves in the West Indies and of the native people in South Africa, among other causes.

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton died in 1845 and his estates and the baronetcy were inherited by his eldest surviving son Sir Edward North Buxton (1812-58). He was also an MP and he lived at Leytonstone House (near the Green Man roundabout), but when the Essex South constituency boundaries changed he moved to Warlies at Upshire. His youngest brother, Thomas Fowell Buxton (1821-1908) then moved into Leytonstone House.

Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, third Baronet (1837-1915) of Warlies was influential in the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and was elected their president in 1899. One of his grandsons remembered a large picture of a scene on the coast of Africa (painted c1840 by F A Biard) which hung by the stairs, frightening the young lad when he went to bed. This now hangs at the Wilberforce Museum in Hull, a tribute to the work of the Buxton family.

• Georgina Green has been involved with local history in Redbridge, Waltham Forest and the Epping Forest area for 40 years and is the author of several local history books. She was elected a fellow of the Royal Historical Society in 2021.