Ann Yearsley and the British Abolitionist Movement

Ann Yearsley 1753-1806
Like most Romantic period writers, you can find a rather vague overall description about this female writer on Wikipedia with a good overall bibliography of her work. Yearsley married into the farming community and continued her love of literature from her mother's faithful acts of bringing books home for Ann to read.
Yearsley lived a very hard-working and laborious lifestyle before she became discovered as a writer. You can learn extensively about Yearsley leading up to her discovery as a writer in an excerpt from Ann Yearsley's Biography on BookRags. Yearsley was controversial during her time due to her interaction with Hannah More (a patron of Yearsley with higher social status) during the time that she was forced to leave her cottage with six children and one on the way. You can find more information on this interaction between these two women in a shorter biography. Yearsley's interaction with More was detrimental to her writing because More was a member of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the African Slave Trade. There is a wonderful and descriptive biography on Hannah More in the Brycchan Carey website with various links to her poetry like "Slavery, a Poem" which is similar to Yearsley but, in my opinion, a lot more authoritative, powerful, and forceful.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yearsley and More are only a few of the women (and men) involved in the British Abolitionist Movement. A lot of these participants were also radicals in favor of the French Revolution. There is a wonderful page on the Anti-Slavery website that gives a rather extensive History on the British Abolitionist movement for those students that find themselves intrigued by the powerful voice of abolitionists like Yearsley. There is also a great description in this website about Charles Buxton: a radical trying to make an act in 1833 on Slavery Abolition.
One last resource to look at as a means to understand the roles of Romantic authors and poets with the British Abolitionist Movement is one on Abolitionist Literature from this era; "the Poetical Milkwoman of Bristol" (aka Yearsley) is just one among the many frustrated authors fed up with the skewed perception of Christianity in society and the mistreatment of others.