Benjamin Lay

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Category: Equality, History

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Introduction

Benjamin Lay was born to a Quaker family in Essex, in 1682. Influenced by the radical thinkers of the English Civil War, Lay was an abolitionist, anti-capitalist, animal rights campaigner, environmentalist, pacifist vegetarian. He was class-conscious, race-conscious, gender-conscious and environmentally conscious activist who was intersectional almost three centuries before the term was coined.

As a result of suffering from achondroplasia which restricted his growth, and kyphosis, causing extreme curvature of the spine, he stood little more than four feet tall. This did not prevent him from abandoning his apprenticeship as a glover to become a sailor. Sharing cramped quarters with multi-ethnic crews, further cemented his committed internationalist worldview.

He and his wife Sarah campaigned against the slave trade on both sides of the Atlantic. Lay refused to allow anyone to use his disability to undermine him. Instead he defined himself. Styling himself as “little Benjamin,” he compared himself to David standing up to Goliath. During his lifetime, his fearless and confrontational tactics made him famous across Pennsylvania but by the 19th Century his was being dismissed in derogatory terms as a mentally deranged “little hunchback.” However, in recent times he has been rediscovered by Quaker historians, who have recognised him as someone who spoke truth to power, irrespective of the consequences for himself.