Blue Plaque to Quaker women activists on Pop Recs

You may need to crane your neck somewhat to see this blue plaque, in honour of the Quaker women activists.

The block of buildings you are now facing, numbered 170-173, are all that remains of a once-affluent terrace of Georgian properties. Built as a commercial premises, with a double-height front window, 173 was bought by Quaker George Binns in 1811 to be the new premises of his growing drapers’ business. The Quakers were long-standing abolitionists, and the Sunderland Quaker meeting minute books show that they were active in this campaign from the early 18th century. When slavery was outlawed in the British Empire in 1807, they continued to raise awareness of the plight of those people still enslaved. Sunderland became particularly well known for one campaign whereby the Quaker shop keepers refused to stock (slave-produced) West Indian sugar, and this act was widely copied by other grocers in the town. This was just one of the awareness-raising campaigns that the Quaker women devised.