An article in the Ipswich Society newsletter has been sent to us by Alan Swerdlow of Woodbridge, which points out how many streets in the Suffolk town were named after abolitionists. The newsletter says it is not surprising that Ipswich Quakers were aware of Thomas Clarkson's network of activists and took part in it themselves. Clarkson lived near Ipswich for the last thirty years of his life.

When Quaker Richard Dykes Alexander made land available for building houses in the 1850s, he wanted some street names to be those of abolitionists.

So in Ipswich there are streets named after Clarkson, Wilberforce, Benezet, Dillwyn, Eliot, Emlen, Gibbons, Sharpe. Can any other town claim so many? In Liverpool, in contrast, many streets are named after slavers.

Labels: ipswich quaker abolitionist streets