Edward Rushton was undoubtedly a heroic figure who should be given a place in Liverpool's history of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. He was an uncompromising opponent of slavery. In that, he differed from Roscoe and William Rathbone who have had the most publicity as anti-slavery campaigners. He himself became blind because of his unyielding abhorrence of the enslavement of one human by another.

He was born on November 18 1756, in John St., Liverpool and, before his eleventh birthday, was apprenticed as a seaman to a firm of West India merchants - Watt and Gregson.

He was in his sixteenth year when his ship was in a terrific storm just outside the mouth of the Mersey. His friend, the Reverend William Shepherd wrote:

"The captain and the crew so lost their presence of mind as to abandon themselves to despair and relinquish all efforts to guide the ship. The boy seized the helm, sounded a tone of command, and by his courageous bearing inspired the men to return to their posts, and succeeded in saving the ship".

The firm gave him an immediate promotion to second mate and his indentures were endorsed with a commendation.

When he was 19, he sailed as mate in an American ship, which picked up slaves in Africa. Rushton protested at the treatment of the slaves and was threatened with irons. Later the slaves contracted 'contagious opthalmia, a disease which, in most cases, brought blindness in three weeks. The crew battened down the hatches. Rushton, after arguments with the captain was allowed to take food and drink to the slaves, caught the disease, and was blinded.

He wrote poetry, and became a tireless campaigner against slavery and against the press gangs led by naval officers, kidnapping sailors for the navy.He was a revolutionary republican, supporter of the American war for Independence, the French revolution, and the struggle of the Polish and Irish people. He started a paper and naval officers threatened him when he wrote articles condemning the press gangs.

After the American revolution he wrote to Washington. He repeated his support for the revolution but condemned Washington sharply for owning slaves. Washington sent the letter back.

Rushton wrote to Thomas Paine suggesting they have a joint campaign against slavery. Paine refused. Rushton ended his poem American Independency with the following verse:

How can you, who have felt the oppressor's hard hand,
Who for freedom all perils would brave,
How can you enjoy peace, while one foot of your land
Is disgraced by the toil of a slave!"

He founded a school for the blind. In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Blind School moved to Hardman St., to a building now occupied by the Merseyside Trade Union and Community Resource and Unemployment Centre.

Bill Hunter says: "I wrote this book on Edward Rushton in an attempt to rescue from obscurity, this uncompromising fighter for the common people, and to pay tribute to his indomitable spirit." The book has recently been published and can be obtained from Ritchie Hunter priced £6.00.
(ISBN: 0-9542077-0-X)

It is also available from the following bookshops;

News From Nowhere,
Bold Street,
Liverpool

Housmans Bookshop Ltd
5 Caledonian Road
London
N1 9DX

Index Book Centre
16 Electric Avenue
Brixton
London
SW9 8JX

Other books by Bill Hunter include:

"They Knew Why They Fought - Unofficial Struggles and Leadership on the docks 1894-1989"

"Lifelong Apprenticeship - The Life and Times of a Revolutionary"
- The first volume of Bill's own story, covering the years 1920-1959.
Published by Porcupine Press.

For more information, contact Bill Hunter

Other sites with Edward Rushton and the Blind School connections:

Michael W. Royden's page
(local historian who has published the History of the Royal School for the Blind - "Pioneers and Perseverance")

That Species of Property --- Washington's Role in the Controversy Over Slavery
(a paper by Dorothy Twohig)