"[5] A very large and detailed picture of the proceedings was commissioned that today is in the National Portrait Gallery.

"[6] Alexander reported on his visits in 1839, with James Whitehorn, to Sweden and the Netherlands to discuss the conditions of slaves in the Dutch colonies and in Suriname.

[5] Alexander lived in the Quaker community in Stoke Newington Church Street, in a very well regarded group of houses known as Paradise Row.

[7] His and the society's interests were no longer confined to the British empire and as treasurer he appears to have given freely of his own money.

The American freed slave and later abolitionist and statesman, Frederick Douglass, wrote in 1855 after hearing Alexander give a speech in Britain, "George William Alexander ... has spent more than an American fortune in promoting the anti-slavery cause in different sections of the world.

[6] He travelled on behalf of the society in an effort to encourage other countries to abolish slavery, visiting Spain, France, the Netherlands and Denmark.