Description:Once Britain had outlawed the slave trade in 1804-5, a new organisation known as the African Institution tried to maintain the momentum of the anti-slavery movement.
Now they called for other countries to follow Britain and abolish the evil industry.
Disgrace
In recent years, every county in England had petitioned for an end to slavery.
At the Congress of Paris in 1814, though, France's government refused to agree to implement reforms across her own empire.
Although France and Britain agreed to end a ruinous war that had driven Potteries people to desperation, progressive men and women in the local area continued to battle for reform across the globe.
Their mission was to extend the new peace to "the poor and defenceless Sons of Africa."
As they saw it:
...the Traffic in Human Blood, originating and perpetuating Wars and Oppressions, is to be carried on by a France for a period of Five Years; to the disgrace of the civilized World.
In July 1814, the people of Stoke-on-Trent were asked to sign a new petition, which was made available at bookshops and printers' offices across the Potteries:
Wedgwood's of Tunstall;
Tregortha's of Tunstall;
Hugh Garner's, Cobridge;
Allbutt's, Hanley;
Smith's of Shelton;
Tomkinson's of Stoke
Cope's of Lane-Delph;
Forrester's of Lane-End;
Palmer's of Lane-End.
About this document
Burslem pottery manufacturer Enoch Wood kept this notice among his own papers, and this one is now among the collections at Stoke-on-Trent Museums.