Anne Knight - Duke Street, Chelmsford, UK
N 51° 44.156 E 000° 28.132
31U E 325228 N 5734700
This Chelmsford City Council blue plaque is to a "resident of Chelmsford", Anne Knight. The plaque is attached to a building on the south west side of Duke Street close to Chelmsford railway station.
Waymark Code: WMTJE4
Location: Eastern England, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 11/29/2016
Views: 2
The wroding on the blue plaque reads:
Anne Knight
1786 - 1862
Quaker, feminist, slavery
abolitionist and supporter
of universal suffrage.
Born in Springfield.
Resident of
Chelmsford.
The Chelmsford City Council website tells us:
Anne Knight was born in Chelmsford in 1786 to a large Quaker family. She was a prominent abolitionist, organising petitions and public meetings, distributing literature, and even forming a branch of the Women's Anti-Slavery Society in Chelmsford and having a village in Jamaica, Knightsville, named after her. It was this work that led to her pioneering work in feminism. She became concerned about the way female campaigners were treated by male anti-slavery campaigners and was furious when they attempted to stop women taking part in the World Antislavery Convention held in London in 1840. She was inspired to start a campaign advocating equal rights for women, including having gummed labels printed with feminist quotations that she would attach to the outside of her letters. In 1847 she published what is believed to be the first ever leaflet on women's suffrage.