World Anti-Slavery Convention

"[7][page needed] The preparations for this event had begun in 1839, when the Society circulated an advertisement inviting delegates to participate in the convention.

[2] Benjamin Robert Haydon painted The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840, a year after the event[6] that today is in the National Portrait Gallery.

When the latter group sent a message to the BFASS opposing the inclusion of women, a second circular was issued in February 1840 which explicitly stated that the meeting was limited to "gentlemen".

[2] Despite the statement that women would not be admitted, many American and British female abolitionists, including Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Lady Byron, appeared at the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London.

[10] Both the Massachusetts and Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Societies sent women members as their delegates, including Abigail Kimber, Elizabeth Neall, Mary Grew, and Sarah Pugh.

)[10] Wendell Phillips proposed that female delegates should be admitted, and much of the first day of the convention was devoted to discussing whether they should be allowed to participate.

[2] Published reports from the convention noted "The upper end and one side of the room were appropriated to ladies, of whom a considerable number were present, including several female abolitionists from the United States."

[13] George William 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.

[14] After leaving the convention on the first day, being denied full access to the proceedings, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton "walked home arm in arm, commenting on the incidents of the day, [and] we resolved to hold a convention as soon as we returned home, and form a society to advocate the rights of women."