Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet Buxton of Belfield and Runton (1786–1845)
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, 1st Baronet Buxton of Belfield and Runton (1 April 1786[1] – 19 February 1845), was an English Member of Parliament, brewer, abolitionist and social reformer.[2] He married Hannah Gurney, whose sister became Elizabeth Fry, and became a great friend of her father Joseph Gurney and the extended Gurney family.
Buxton was born at Castle Hedingham, Essex. His father, also named Thomas Fowell Buxton, died young, leaving three sons and two daughters. His Quaker mother's maiden name was Anna Hanbury. He completed his education at Trinity College Dublin,[3] graduating in 1807.[4]
Although he was a member of the Church of England, Buxton attended Quaker meetings with some of the Gurneys, and so became involved in the social reform movement, in which Friends were prominent. He helped to raise money for the weavers of London, who were being forced into poverty by the factory system. He provided financial support for Elizabeth Fry's prison reform work and joined her Association for the Improvement of the Female Prisoners in Newgate.
Buxton was elected to Parliament for Weymouth and Melcombe Regis in 1818. As an MP he worked for changes in prison conditions and criminal law and for the abolition of slavery, in which he was helped by his sister-in-law Louisa Gurney Hoare.[citation needed] He also opposed capital punishment and pushed for its abolition. Although he never accomplished that, he worked to restrict the crimes for which capital punishment could be meeted, whose number eventually fell from more than 200 to eight (8). Other moves for which Buxton argued were the suppression of lotteries and abolition of suttee, the practice of burning widows in India.
Thomas and Hannah Buxton had eight children, but four died of whooping cough over a five-week period around April 1820. Another died of consumption some time later. Hannah would send boxes of toys to the missionary Anna Hinderer in Nigeria in 1855. By 1866, her grandchildren were parcelling them up.[7]
Abolitionism
Buxton is on the left edge in this painting which is of the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention.[8] Move cursor to identify him or click icon to enlarge
The slave trade had been abolished in 1807, but existing slavery remained and Buxton joined in the campaign to abolish it. In 1823, he helped to found the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (later the Anti-Slavery Society). In May 1823, Buxton introduced in the House of Commons a resolution condemning the state of slavery as "repugnant to the principles of the British constitution and of the Christian religion", and called for its gradual abolition "throughout the British colonies". He also pressured the government to send dispatches to the colonies to improve the treatment of slaves.[9]
Buxton took over as leader of the abolition movement in the British House of Commons after William Wilberforce retired in 1825. The petition he presented to the House of Commons bore 187,000 signatures. This had been partly organised by Priscilla Buxton in 1833; she and Amelia Opie were the first two signatories.[10]
He largely achieved his goal when slavery was officially abolished in the British Empire with the passage of his Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, except in India and Ceylon. Buxton held his seat in Parliament until 1837.[citation needed]
In 1839, Buxton urged the British government to make treaties with African leaders to abolish the slave trade. The government in turn backed the Niger expedition of 1841 (not including Buxton) put together by missionary organizations, which was also going to work on trade. More than 150 people were part of the expedition, which reached the Niger Delta and began negotiations. The British suffered such high mortality from fevers, with more than 25 per cent of the group dying rapidly, that the mission was cut short in 1841.[citation needed]
David Livingstone was strongly influenced by Buxton's arguments that the African slave trade might be destroyed through the influence of "legitimate trade" (in goods) and the spread of Christianity. He became a missionary in Africa and fought the slave trade all his life.[citation needed]
On 30 July 1840, Buxton was created a baronet.[11] His health failed gradually – according to some, due to disappointment over the failed mission to Africa. He died five years later at his home, Northrepps Hall, near Cromer, Norfolk and was buried at Overstrand, Norfolk. He also owned farms and woodland at Runton nearby (now the Runton Old Hall estate).[12]
Founding RSPCA chairman
On 16 June 1824, a meeting was held at Old Slaughter's Coffee House, St Martin's Lane, London, at which was created the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals – it became the RSPCA when Queen Victoria gave royal assent in 1840.[13][14]
A representation of Buxton was printed on the English five-pound note used between 2002 and 2017. He is the figure wearing glasses in the group to the left of Elizabeth Fry.
^Olwyn Mary Blouet, "Buxton, Sir Thomas Fowell, first baronet (1786–1845)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., May 2010 accessed 25 April 2013.
^The Banville Diaries, Journals of a Norfolk Gamekeeper 1822–44, ed. Norma Virgoe and Susan Yaxley, Introduction by Lord Buxton, William Collins and Sons, 1986 (Banville was Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton's gamekeeper). Also A Timeline of Thomas Fowell Buxton's Career, The Thomas Fowell Buxton Society.
^Home by The Sea: Runton Old Hall - its history and some of its inhabitants, William Macadam, December 31, 2014
^Antony Brown, Who Cares For Animals? 150 Years of the RSPCA (London: Heinemann,1974), p. 16.
^Kathryn Shevelow, For the Love of Animals: The Rise of the Animal Protection Movement (New York: Henry Holt, 2009), pp. 269, 280.
^Edward G. Fairholme and Wellesley Pain, A Century of Work for Animals: The History of the R.S.P.C.A., 1824–1934(London: John Murray, 1934), pp. 54, 301.
^Arthur W. Moss, Valiant Crusade: The History of the R.S.P.C.A. (London: Cassell, 1961), pp. 22–23.
^Foster, J. The royal lineage of our noble and gentle families. p. 138.
^Clare Midgley, "Buxton, Priscilla (1808–1852)", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online ed., September 2015 accessed 25 June 2017
Bibliography
Barclay, Oliver (2001). Thomas Fowell Buxton and the liberation of slaves. York: William Sessions.
Binney, Thomas (1853) [1849]. Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart. A study for young men. London: J. Nisbet & Co.
Buxton, Charles, ed. (1848). Memoirs of Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton Bart. London.
Buxton, Thomas (2009) [first published 1818]. An Inquiry, whether Crime and Misery are Produced or Prevented, by our Present System of Prison Discipline. Cambridge Library Collection – British and Irish History, 19th Century. Cambridge University Press. ISBN978-1-108-00492-3.
Follett, Richard R. (2008). "After Emancipation: Thomas Fowell Buxton and Evangelical Politics in the 1830s". Parliamentary History. 27: 119–129. doi:10.1111/j.1750-0206.2007.00015.x.
Laidlaw, Zoe (2004). "Aunt Anna's Report: The Buxton Women and the Aborigines Select Committee, 1835–37". Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. 32 (2): 1–28. doi:10.1080/03086530410001700381. S2CID159690400.
Rodriguez, Junius P. (2007). Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
