Edmund Sturge facts for kids
Edmund Sturge (8 December 1808 – 28 June 1893), was a Quaker businessman and campaigner for liberal causes.
Contents
Early life
Edmund Sturge was born at Olveston, near Bristol, the youngest of the twelve children of Joseph Sturge (1752–1817) and his wife, Mary (born Marshall).
His older brother, Joseph Sturge (1793–1859), was active in the anti-slavery movement as was his cousin, Thomas Sturge. Edmund was schooled at James Moxham's (Thornbury) and R. Weston's (Rochester). Both his parents having died by the time he was aged 11, and most holidays were spent with his brother Joseph at Netherton (Bewdley) where he was occupied in the office and warehouse of the corn factors business of Joseph & Charles Sturge. On leaving school he went to live at brother Joseph's new home in Birmingham, where his brother John also resided, and Edmund kept the books of John's Chemical Works until coming of age and entering partnership as J & E Sturge.
Sturge became active in the anti-slavery movement and other liberal causes: for peace, penal reform, the suppression of the opium trade and in the Aborigines' Protection Society.
Anti-Slavery
From 1837, on Joseph Sturge's return from a tour of the West Indies, Edmund helped to widely distribute Joseph's report on the conditions of slaves. In 1840, he joined the newly formed British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and in 1860 was appointed to its Committee. He served as the Society's Secretary from 1870 and as its chairman from 1882 to 1891 and then as its vice-president until his death. After he retired from business in 1876, he regularly lobbied Parliament on the Society's business (see below: William Tallack's reminiscence).
In 1893, he published a 23-page pamphlet West India : "compensation" to the owners of slaves : its history and its results.
Edmund Sturge's Obituary in The Times said: "...Mr Sturge ... was a younger brother of the late Mr Joseph Sturge, the Abolitionist, and had himself been a steady but unobtrusive worker in the anti-slavery cause for more than 60 years, and many of the reforms that have taken place in the West Indies in favour of the emancipated negros are mainly due to his intervention".
In 1841, Edmund Sturge and Lydia Albright were married (See below for details of their marriage and children). Lydia was already active in liberal causes, such as the replacement of war with arbitration and the relief of poverty. She was already in the Ladies' Negro's Friendly Society and was later its Secretary. It is clear that throughout their marriage her support in their projects was substantial.
Chemical manufacturing business
Another of Edmund Sturge's brothers was John Sturge, (1799–1840). In 1814, he was apprenticed at John Bell, a highly successful Quaker pharmacist and manufacturing chemist, with a shop and laboratory on Oxford Street in London.
John Sturge started his own business, at Severnside, manufacturing verdigris and Solution of Tin for the use of dyers. Around 1823, he moved to Edgbaston, Birmingham and bought land between the canal and Wheeleys Road.
His brother Edmund joined him in the business, after completing his schooling. The firm traded under the name J. and E. Sturge & Co.
In 1831 John leased land across the road on which the John and E. Sturge works were later built and the manufacture of industrial chemicals. Citrates, tartrates, bicarbonate of potash and precipitated chalk were among its products.
On the death of John Sturge in 1840, Arthur Albright, brother to Edmund's wife and a trained chemist, joined the partnership. Arthur Albright was responsible for developing practical mass-production of white phosphorus and later the safer allotrope, "red" or "amorphous" phosphorus, used in the manufacture of matches. He later separated this part of the business, which became Albright and Wilson.
The Montserrat connection
The factory extracted citric acid from citrus juice, using lemons from Sicily, subject to sharp variations in supply. Their brother, Joseph had supported the production of limes on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. This eventually led to the family becoming the largest landholder on Montserrat, successfully running estates with fairly paid labour for many years.
In 1867, Edmund and Lydia Sturge travelled to Montserrat and spent a year developing the growing of limes. This enterprise later became the Montserrat Lime Juice company, of which Edmund Sturge was a director until his death. Their son John Edmund and daughter Edith were also involved in the running of the Montserrat estates.
Marriage and family
In 1841, Edmund Sturge and Lydia Albright were married. She was a daughter of William and Rachel Albright of Charlbury. Their children were:
- John Edmund, born 3 April 1842, married Jane Richardson. Died Montserrat in 1880, aged 38
- Edith Mary, born 26 October 1843 married James Spencer Hollings, 1868.
- Francis Albright, born 28 August 1845
- Eleanor, born 6 August 1848
- Margaret, born 20 August 1850, married (1) Lewis Sturge, (2) Colin Campbell Scott Moncrieff
Lydia Sturge died 19 December 1892.
Death
Edmund Sturge died on 28 June 1893, aged 84 at Charlbury.
See also
Sources
- The main source of vital dates in this article is an entry in the "Dictionary of Quaker Biography" (DQB), a typescript source, held at the Library of the Religious Society of Friends in London. Sources cited in the DQB article on Edmund Sturge are:
- Birth: Glos. & Wilts. QM Births Digest Register
- Marriage: Digest of Marriages
- Death: Digest of Death
- Children: Digest of Births
- Testimony of Witney Monthly Meeting in Yearly Meeting Proceedings, 1894, p137
- Annual Monitor [described below]
- The Friend 33 (1893):437-8
-
- NOTE: The DQB article on Edmund Sturge makes no reference to his business interests.
- Annual monitor (New Series) 52 (1894): 155–168, a memorial essay, in an annual listing of Quakers who died during the previous year.
- Edward H. Milligan The Biographical Dictionary of British Quakers in Commerce and Industry 1775-1920; York, William Sessions Limited (2007), Paperback ISBN: 1-85072-367-2 Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-85072-367-7. This dictionary contains no article on Edmund Sturge but useful articles on his brothers, Joseph and Charles Sturge and Edmund's brother-in-law and business partner, Arthur Albright.
- The Montserrat Connection: Family history, by Joseph Edward Sturge (2004), available online. this is an unreferenced family history by someone who managed the Lime plantations on Montserrat 1960 – 1974. It is written for family members.
