Benjamin Lay – Who he?

BENAJMIN Lay is an “Essex boy”, born in 1682 of a Quaker family, possibly the earliest Abolitionist.

He was just over four feet tall with a hunched back and small, very thin legs. These limitations did not hamper him in any way. He called himself “Little Benjamin.

At the age of 21, Ben travelled to London and to the Docklands. He began working on the modern deep sea sailing ships, often climbing aloft to work on the sails. He travelled for the next 10 years, inevitably coming across slave trading. He married Sarah Smith, also a “little person”.

Benjamin was never afraid to speak his mind when he saw ‘unQuakerly’ behaviour.

In 1718, the Lays sailed to Barbados and it was here that they came upon the full horror of slavery in the sugar industry. Two years later, they returned to England before sailing to Philadelphia.

Friends in Pennsylvania, named after Quaker William Penn, were not ashamed to keep slaves. Deeply shocked at the horror of slavery, Benjamin began to use “guerrilla warfare” in his campaign.

In 1738, our hero travelled 30 miles, on foot, subsisting on acorns and peaches, to the huge Quaker Meeting in Philadelphia. He found a spot. Waiting his moment, he flung off his overcoat, revealing a military uniform and a sword. He held a hollow book containing a bladder filled with red poke berry juice. In a loud voice, he declared, “God respects all people, rich and poor, men and women, black and white. Slave keeping is the greatest sin. Thus shall God shed the blood of all slave keepers”.

He thrust the sword into the book held above his head; “blood” flowed everywhere. Women fainted and Ben was removed from the room.

Nothing daunted Benjamin in his abolitionist career. He travelled all over Philadelphia, always fighting for the slaves. He died in 1759, aged 77.

In 1780, finally an Act for the Gradual Abolishment of Slavery was passed.

It was not until 1807 that all slave trading was abolished in the British Empire

Paula Seddon from Wokingham Quakers, writing on behalf of Churches Together in

Wokingham