It is amazing what you can discover online by chance whilst looking for something else. A couple of months ago I came across Lucy Townsend and her links to the village. She was the wife of Charles Townsend, the rector of the village from 1804 to 1833. She was a little known, but highly influential, slavery abolitionist. She was born on 25th July 1781 in West Bromwich, Staffordshire. She married Charles on 6th July 1807 and they had three daughters and 3 sons.
The Ladies’ Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves was founded in her home in West Bromwich on 8th April 1825. Lucy lived in both West Bromwich and Calstone – see later. It was separate from the national Anti-Slavery Society and the local men’s anti-slavery societies. Lucy’s organisation acted as a hub for a national network of female anti-slavery societies and influenced the formation similar societies in America. Under Lucy’s leadership, with the help of Mary Lloyd, the society focused on the sufferings of women under slavery, encouraged boycotting the slave grown sugar products, and produced innovative propaganda anti-slavery information, such as poems, embroidered anti-slavery workbags and seals all with the motto “Am I not a woman and a sister?”.
The society was most active between 1823 and 1833, which culminated in the Emancipation Act in 1833. (This act built on the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which prohibited the slave trade but did nothing to free existing slaves. The 1833 Act gave all slaves in the British empire their freedom, after a set transition period, with children under 6 freed immediately. Enslaved people in the British Caribbean finally gained their freedom on 31st July 1838).
After this Lucy’s society focused on universal abolition of slavery and education work for freed slaves. She worked on this cause up to her death in 1847 and the society she founded was active until 1919.
Not being content with championing one great cause she also established, with her friend Mary Lloyd, the Juvenile Association for West Bromwich and Wednesbury in Aid of Uninstructed Deaf Mutes in 1834.
She also supported her husband Charles in campaigns to abolish bull baiting and other cruel sports.
With Lucy and Charles being resident in rectory when she was most active I can imagine that the sermons in St Mary’s at this time where very interesting to say the least!
As a postscript I don’t know if you have ever been in the church and looked at the list of rectors. Charles Townsend is listed twice. Once from 1804 to 1815 and again from 1815 to 1833. I always assumed it was an error or the second Charles was the first one’s son. But it turns out it is neither of those things. Charles left Magdalen College, Oxford in December 1803. He was ordained as a priest on 4th August 1804 and was installed as rector of St Mary’s on 14th August 1804. Charles was the full-time rector until 1815 and then went part time. On 24th April 1815 he ceased to be the rector and was reappointed on the same day. From 1815 to 1833 he spent 50% of his time in Calstone and 50% as perpetual curate in West Bromwich, where his wife came from. When he left Calstone he became rector of a church in Thorpe, Nottinghamshire, until his death on 10th Nov 1865.
Most of the above has been shamelessly taken from an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography: Townsend [nee Jesse], Lucy by Clare Midgley 23/9/2004. https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/50717