Read Part One HERE
In this post I will continue to focus on Anne Knight. She lived from 1786 - 1862.
Anne carried on correspondence with abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and his supporters in America.
The World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840 gave her the opportunity to meet American abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Lucretia Mott. The fact that the convention refused to seat the American female delegates, and the heated debates and discussions that resulted from that refusal, convinced Anne that there was a pressing need to campaign for womens' rights. The movement for womens' suffrage in Britain has been dated from the exclusion of women from the floor of this conference, as it made them realise that they were marginalised within the movement and limited in activities within the public sphere.
In the 1840s Anne's first published statements appeared. She composed and had printed handbills and pamphlets often written in the style of an open letter to a public figure, who she felt had shown lack of principle.
Anne helped to inspire the Sheffield Female Reform Association, the first associateion for womens' suffrage, which had its inaugural meeting in Sheffield in 1851.
In the late 1850's Anne moved to Waldersbach near Strassbourg, where she died in 1862.
Read Part Seventy-Five HERE
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