Jonathan Binns (1747-1818) was an English Quaker and abolitionist, one of only two signatories from Liverpool who signed a 1783 parliamentary petition calling for the abolition of slavery.
Returning to Liverpool to practice medicine, he married Mary Allbright (1748-1833) and built his home on Bold Street.
In 1783 at an annual meeting in London of members of the Religious Society of Friends, Binns signed a petition submitted to parliament requesting an end to the exportation of slaves by officers of the Royal African Company.
Of the 273 Quakers who signed, only Binns and ship merchant William Rathbone IV were from Liverpool, a city which by 1795 was handling over 40% of the entire European slave trade.
[4][5] Leaving Liverpool at the height of his career, possibly due to his views on slavery, he became an honorary superintendent of the Quaker Ackworth School and later retired to Lancaster where he continued to practice until his death in 1818.