Abraham Rawlinson

Abraham Rawlinson came from a prosperous 18th century family of ironmasters and merchants who built a fortune in slave trade.

The family’s commercial interests were initially focused on trade with the West Indies. The young Rawlinson inherited his father’s business in 1765, and created a new company “Abraham Rawlinson Junr. & Co.” involved in the importation of mahogany and in the slave trade.

Precisely through the slave trade the family managed to build the reputation and its wealth. Serving as MP for Lancaster in 1780-90, Abraham ardently opposed to the ideas of the abolition of the slave trade. In 1792 he wrote about the events in the country:

"The people in England want to lower the prices of sugar and yet continue presenting petitions from all quarters to Parliament to procure the abolition of the slave trade. Many have left off the use of sugar, for the purpose of putting a stop to the slave trade. If the custom become prevalent of eating and using nothing that has been touched by slaves, we may soon expect to see people in the state of their first nature, naked in the field, feeding like Nebuchadnezzar upon grass. What wonders their philanthropy or Enthusiasm will produce is unknown."

Abraham died in 1803, four years before the Abolition of the Slave Trade in England.