11 Facts About Samuel Bowly

Samuel Bowly was an English abolitionist and temperance advocate.

Samuel Bowly had a sound business training under his father.

Samuel Bowly was on the board of the Birmingham and Gloucester Railway.

Samuel Bowly became chairman of local banking, gas, railway, and other companies, and for the last twenty years of his life he was a leader in commercial circles and affairs.

Samuel Bowly wanted to give the people cheap and universal education.

Samuel Bowly was a founders of the British and ragged schools in Gloucester and an advocate of a national system.

Samuel Bowly took an active part in the anti-slavery agitation, and by his powerful appeals completely beat Peter Borthwick, the pro-slavery lecturer, off the ground.

Samuel Bowly was one of the deputation, 14 November 1837, which went to Downing Street to have an interview with Lord Melbourne about the cruelties exercised towards the slaves under the seven years' apprenticeship system, and in the following year took an active part in the formation of the Central Negro Emancipation Committee, which was ultimately instrumental in causing the abolition of the objectionable regulations.

Samuel Bowly is pictured above at the 1840 International Anti-Slavery conference in London.

Samuel Bowly attended the convention and is depicted in a painting The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840 by Benjamin Haydon.

Samuel Bowly married, first, Miss Jane Shipley, daughter of Mr John Shipley of Shaftesbury.