Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society

Logo from the society's 1866 annual report

The Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society was a leading abolitionist group based in Edinburgh, Scotland, in the nineteenth century. ^[1] The women associated with the organisation are considered "heroines" and the impact of these abolitionist organisations for women are thought to have had a notional impact. ^[2]

History

On 7 October 1833, a group of activists formed the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society, the Edinburgh Emancipation Society, the Glasgow Emancipation Society, and the Glasgow Ladies' Emancipation Society to support George Thompson after receiving an invitation to visit the New England Emancipation Society which was led by the 28-year-old William Lloyd Garrison. ^[3] The division of abolitionist and all general voluntary societies by gender is a prominent trend seen from the 1820s within England with the first women's emancipation society the Female Society for Birmingham. ^[4] Dr. John Ritchie was in the chair and among the three secretaries was Robert Kaye Greville. ^[5]

The emancipation societies would host abolitionist speakers on lecture tours of Great Britain, although the Edinburgh Ladies' society eventually rejected speakers from the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS). This was because the British and the American abolitionist movements were split over the beliefs of Garrison, who advocated the immediate release of American slaves. Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Bristol, and Clifton were strong supporters of Garrison's proposal, while other groups favoured a managed move away from slavery. ^[6] John Wigham of the Edinburgh Emancipation Society had set up links with the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and it was his wife Jane Wigham and his daughter Eliza Wigham who steered the Ladies' Emancipation Society to different loyalties. ^[4]

Eliza Wigham, left, and Elizabeth Pease Nichol were in the Edinburgh Ladies' Emancipation Society

Eliza Wigham, as secretary of the society, corresponded with many of the leading abolitionists. She was friends with many anti-slavery activists including Wendell Phillips, George Thompson and Frederick Douglass. As an American ex-slave, Douglass visited Edinburgh at the invitation of Eliza Wigham and he accompanied Eliza and members of the society when in the 1840s they wrote "Send Back the Money" on the grass of Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh. ^[7] The graffiti was aimed at the Free Church of Scotland, which had accepted funding from American slave-owning organisations. ^[8] In 1860, at the society's invitation, American abolitionist campaigner Sarah Parker Remond, who was described as "a lady of colour from America", ^[9] gave a lecture in Edinburgh that was "crowded to the door by a most respectable audience, number upwards of 2000", whose consciences Remond awakened to a deepened "abhorrence of the sin of Slavery". ^[10]

In response to Harriet Lupton's, a Unitarian feminist who was a supporter of Garrison, offer to pay the fees for women to attend the BFASS-organised 1854 nationwide conference, the society opted to send male delegate Duncan McLaren. ^[4] However, they expressed support for the idea of gender equality within the abolitionist space, writing in a letter:

When it is considered that one of those whose interests the Convention will meet to advocate, one half at least are women...and that during the interval since West India Emancipation, a great share of anti-slavery work and duty had devolved on the women of Britain, we would respectfully suggest that ladies should be specially invited to attend the conference, and thus have the opportunity of representing the wrongs of their sisters who are in bonds. ^[4]

The society moved away from its support of Garrison, and Eliza and Jane Wigham were encouraged to leave in protest, but they remained as members. The society tried to steer a compromise position between the radical Garrison and the more conservative position of the BFASS. The Wighams supported Mary Estlin's initiative to find common ground between the Garrisonians and the BFASS. ^[4]

Eliza also corresponded with Levi Coffin and Thomas Garrett of the Underground Railroad. She sent Garrett money towards the cost of supporting the slaves who were smuggling themselves to Canada via Garrett's house. ^[11]

Unlike other anti-slavery organisations that splintered, the Edinburgh organisation was still running in 1870. Credit for this was given to Jane and Eliza Wigham. ^[12]

Legacy

Four of the women associated with the organisation were the subject of a campaign by Edinburgh historians in 2015. The group intended to gain recognition for Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Priscilla Bright McLaren, Eliza Wigham, and Jane Wigham – the city's "forgotten heroines". ^[8]

References

1. Edinburgh Ladies Emancipation Society (15 February 1866). "Annual Report of the Ladies' Emancipation Society". Wilson Anti-Slavery Collection: 2. JSTOR   60238978.
2. Midgley, Clare, "Lloyd , Mary (1795–1865)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, September 2013. Retrieved 30 July 2015.
3. Temperley, Howard (1972). British antislavery, 1833-1870. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN   978-0-87249-268-4.
4. Midgley, Clare (2004). Women Against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780–1870. p. 134. ISBN   1134798814.
5. "Slavery in The United States". The Liberator . 27 April 1834 – via Newspapers.com.
6. Introduction Archived 1 June 2015 at the Wayback Machine , C. Peter Ripley, University of North Carolina
7. "Remembering Edinburgh Ladies Emancipation Society". Edinburgh News. 21 February 2015. Retrieved 28 July 2025.
8. "Campaign to honour four 'forgotten' heroines of Scottish history", The Herald (Glasgow), 2 June 2015. Retrieved 4 June 2015.
9. Crawford, Elizabeth. "Am I Not A Woman And A Sister: Women and the Anti-Slavery Campaign". Woman and Her Sphere. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
10. "African American Activists in Scotland – Sarah Parker Remond". Struggles for Liberty: African American Revolutionaries in the Atlantic World. Retrieved 23 July 2023.
11. Kashatus, James A. McGowan; with a foreword by William C. (2004). Station Master on the Underground Railroad: The life and letters of Thomas Garrett (Rev. ed.). Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland & Co. p. 162. ISBN   0786417609.
12. "Eliza Wigham. 1820–1898", The Scottish Suffragists. Archived 31 May 2015 at the Wayback Machine . Retrieved 30 May 2015.