Elizabeth Heyrick (née Coltman; 4 December 1769 – 18 October 1831) was an English philanthropist and campaigner against the slave trade.
[1][2] In the early 19th century, the prominent leaders of the British abolitionist movement, William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, believed that when the slave trade was abolished in 1807, slavery itself would gradually die out.
In 1823 or 1824, Heyrick published a pamphlet entitled "Immediate, not Gradual Abolition", criticising leading anti-slavery campaigners such as Wilberforce for their assumptions that the institution of slavery would gradually die out and for focusing too much on the slave trade: "The West Indian planters have occupied much too prominent a place in the discussion of this great question.
"[3] Aiming to promote public awareness of the issues of the slave trade and hit the profits of planters and of importers of slave-produced goods, Heyrick encouraged a social movement to boycott sugar from the West Indies, visiting grocers' shops in Leicester to persuade them not to stock it.
She was the author of more than 20 pamphlets and other writings on those subjects and others such as war, the plight of the poor, vagrancy, wages, corporal punishment and electoral reform.