[4] The city was named "Albion" after an ancient and poetic reference to the island of Great Britain.

Four companies of militia marched from Mount Carmel towards Albion to seize the county documents stored in the courthouse.

George Flower and Morris Birkbeck, a Quaker agriculturalist and radical, organised the purchase of 26,400 acres of land in the southern "Illinois Territory," and encouraged settlers from England to come and join them.

Among them was George's father Richard Flower, an experienced brewer (who at some point taught his son about making popular beer styles of the period, including London Porter).

The settlement espoused a firm abolitionist ethos, and escaped slaves from Kentucky settled in Albion, encouraged by the Flowers and other community leaders.

Around 1823-24 one such gang of eight to ten kidnapped a group of free African-American residents of Albion and headed south.

He was only eighteen years old, but his posse successfully captured the gang "at the rifle's mouth," freed the captives, and took the kidnappers to face judgment under the law.

[citation needed] Friends or ‘business associates’ of the original kidnappers' allies plotted to kill the young Flower or his father in revenge.

According to some newspaper reports, a cousin also named Richard was tragically mistaken for Edward’s father and killed in a pre-planned argument and fight.

During the Civil War, Flower spoke at meetings around Britain and Ireland in support of the Union, and against slavery.