THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

The Female Society for Birmingham functioned as an unofficial national anti-
slavery organization for women, influencing the formation of other ladies’ associations.
The vast organization of officers and committees as well as the extensive correspondence
maintained by Society founder Lucy Townsend enabled Birmingham women to
communicate with other like-minded women in Great Britain, the United States, and
beyond. 33 The network of district treasurers grew from ten women in 1825 to forty-nine
by 1830 spread throughout England as well as Wales, Ireland, France, Sierra Leone, and
Calcutta. Treasurers were urged to establish local anti-slavery associations, a plan which
proved successful in expanding the network of ladies’ associations. Elizabeth Heyrick,
for example, served as district treasurer from Leicester for the Birmingham group and
helped establish Leicester’s local women’s anti-slavery society. 34 Other ladies’
associations not directly affiliated with the Birmingham group such as the Sheffield
Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves (1825), the Colchester
Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Association (1825), and the Liverpool Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society
(1827) also relied on the Birmingham women for information and support in establishing
their groups. 35 Between 1825 and 1833, at least seventy-three ladies’ associations were
33 For example, Benjamin Lundy reprinted numerous articles about the Birmingham group in the
pages of the Genius of Universal Emancipation. The Society’s First Report was reprinted in its entirety in
the September 8 and 15, 1827 issues of the Genius.
34 Midgley, Women against Slavery, 46-47.
35 Midgley, Women against Slavery, 47, 218 n.24; The Third Report of the Female Society of
Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wednesbury, Walsall and Their Respective Neighbourhoods for the Relief of
British Negro Slaves (Birmingham: Benjamin Hudson, 1828), 18. Midgley notes the adoption by the
Sheffield, Colchester, and Liverpool women of a resolution related to female slaves. The women promised
to continue their efforts “till the time may come when the lash shall no longer be permitted to fall on the
persons of helpless Female Slaves, when our fellow-creatures shall no longer be advertised like beasts for
sale, and sold like beasts at a West India slave Market, and when every Negro Mother, living under British
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