Wilson Armistead

Wilson Armistead (30 August 1819 – 18 February 1868) was an English businessman, abolitionist and writer from Leeds. He led the Leeds Anti-Slavery Association and wrote and edited anti-slavery texts. His best known work, A Tribute for the Negro, was published in 1848 in which he describes slavery as "the most extensive and extraordinary system of crime the world ever witnessed". In 1851 he hosted Ellen and William Craft, including them on the census return as 'fugitive slaves' in an act that has been described as "guerrilla inscription".

According to prominent African-American abolitionist William Wells Brown "Few English gentlemen have done more to hasten the day of the slave’s liberation than Wilson Armistead".

Early life

Wilson Armistead was born in Leeds on 30 August 1819 to Joseph and Hannah Armistead and grew up in Holbeck where his family's flax and mustard business was located at Water Hall. The Quaker meeting house was very close by in Water Lane, and in the words of Wilfred Allott the Armistead family had long been "faithful Friends". Armistead married Mary Bragg in 1844 and their first child, a son called Joseph John was born in 1846. The couple would go on to have a further four children, two more sons and two daughters.

Intellectual life and activism

Armistead's passionate opposition to slavery and "all distinctions of colour" was evident in his earliest writing and he was only 21 when he published The Memoirs of Paul Cuffe: a man of colour in 1840. Calumny Refuted by Facts from Liberia and Slavery Illustrated in the Histories of Zangara and Maquama, Two Negroes stolen from Africa were published in 1848 and 1849 respectively. In his introductions to both The Memoirs of James Logan (1851) and Life of Anthony Benezet (1867) Armistead refers to himself as a compiler and he is recognised for this talent rather than author of original work. In 1852 he published an edition of the founder of the Quakers George Fox's journal, first published in 1664, which he annotated with numerous historical and biographical footnotes.