Seeking help with slave story

Published: 19 July 2014
Reporter: David Upton

The Unsung production team in the appeal video

This November is the bi-centenary of one of the slavery abolition movement's great unsung heroes, and one of Liverpool's great radicals: Edward Rushton. He will be featured in a new play Unsung but the writers are looking for help.

Rushton went to sea from his native Liverpool, aged 13. Four years later he was saved from drowning by Kwamina, a young African and former slave with whom Rushton had struck up a friendship.

Rushton was then involved in a number of human rights campaigns: slavery abolition, the rights of the disabled (he co-founded the first blind school in Britain), opposition to the press gang, support for Irish Catholic emancipation, support for 'combination' (trade unions) and many others.

His only memorial is his name, appended to the bottom of his son's gravestone, so if you can help provide further information then contact via the IndieGogo web site.

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