Edward Strutt Abdy (1791–1846) was an English legal academic and abolitionist, notable as an author on racism and race relations in the United States.
[3] Abdy made an extended American tour, beginning with a visit to Auburn Prison in New York State, by way of a pretext.
It reported on his research on US penal institutions, made with members of the Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline and the Reformation of Juvenile Offenders.
He influenced William Ellery Channing and Lydia Maria Child; and was involved in the formation of the (American) Anti-Slavery League.
[5] In his Journal of a Residence and Tour Abdy recounts, under a chapter subheading "Africo-American craniology", a conversation he had on skulls, with the sexton of Williams's church, who worked in what had become the burial ground for all black New Yorkers.
(1762–1833), French physician in New York), based on the proposition that Paschalis could not with certainty identify an African-American skull from the bone alone.
[10] The public perception, based on Abdy's book and his comfort with being thought tactless, was that they had parted on bad terms.