Edward Rushton (1756-1814) poet, anti-slavery campaigner and co-founder of the first School for the Blind in the country, was born in John Street, Liverpool on the 13th November 1756, the son of Thomas Rushton a Liverpool victualler. Edward Rushton lost his sight early in life and showed strong character pursuing radical causes often in the face of local adversity.
He entered Liverpool Free School at the age of six and by eleven was apprenticed to Messrs. Watt and Gregson, a Liverpool shipping company with West Indian interests. His experience at sea was full of incidents which must have had considerable effect on his character. At the age of sixteen he showed great courage while still an apprentice when he took the helm of ship which the captain and crew were about to abandon. He guided the vessel back into the safety of the port of Liverpool. This act of bravery was endorsed on his indenture of apprenticeship and he was promoted to second mate.
In 1773 while on a slave ship to Guinea he survived a sinking, then later that year on a slaver heading for Dominica he became so sickened with the brutal treatment of the slaves that he was charged with mutiny after remonstrating with the captain. Many of the slaves had contracted the highly contagious opthalmia, which had spread like wildfire in the appalling conditions. Rushton took pity on them and tried to bring what relief he could. His actions resulted in his own personal tragedy as he too caught the disease, entirely losing the sight of his left eye and while the right was covered with an opacity of the cornea.
Meanwhile, his father had remarried and when Edward returned he was turned out of the family home by his new step-mother. He was taken in by his sister where his father continued to support him with an allowance of 4s a week, out of which he paid a young boy 3d a week to read to him.
The experience of his travels and the injustices he had witnessed led to the publication of his first poem The Dismembered Empire in 1782, a condemnation of the American War. In 1797 he wrote to former President George Washington questioning his hypocrisy in retaining slaves for his own use while fighting for Liberty and Independence. He wrote in similar fashion to Thomas Paine but both turned a deaf ear and did not reply. His abhorrence of the slave trade was reflected in The West Indian Eclogues, the first of his poems on the subject published in 1787. So well known had Rushton's reputation and views become, that Thomas Clarkson sought him out while on a visit to Liverpool to credit his contribution to the abolitionist cause.
Around this time, his father established Edward and his sister in a tavern at 19 Crooked Lane, Liverpool. Unsuited to the work, and now with his new wife Isabella, he moved on to become the editor of the Liverpool Herald. This was also to be short lived. Concerned with the excessive barbarism of the Press-Gang he attacked the practice in the Herald. His partner, worried about a local backlash resulting from Rushton's allegations, suggested a retraction, but Rushton resigned rather than compromise. His views on Press Gang brutality inspired his poem Will Clewline published in 1806.
A short while later, he became a bookseller at 44 Paradise Street, but yet again his outspoken views made him enemies and lost him valued custom. In what was the period of Revolution in France and social unrest in England, Rushton made no attempt to moderate his radical thoughts. At length his business recovered and he was able to live out his life in relative comfort while raising a family. Edward, the eldest of four, was born on 22 September 1795 and became a prominent figure in Liverpool politics. He was called to the Bar on 18 November 1831 and was appointed Stipendiary Magistrate of Liverpool on 17 May 1839. He was an ardent social reformer, advocating Catholic emancipation, prison reform, including humane treatment of juvenille offenders, and opposed capital punishment. Edward junior died on 4 April 1851 aged 55 at his home Parkside House in Liverpool and was buried in St.James’ Cemetary, Liverpool.
In the late 1780’s Rushton was regularly meeting with a dozen or so associates in a society which is thought to have been the forerunner of the ill-fated radical Debating Society formed by William Roscoe and the surgeon James Currie in 1795. Here, with the help of his companions, Rushton formulated the idea of raising funds to provide care for the numerous local blind paupers. The Liverpool School for the Indigent Blind, the first of its kind in the country, opened in 1791, although Rushton does not appear to have played any further part in its operation. His literary output continued with the publication of a collection of poems in 1806, which also included his letter to Washington and an Essay on Causes of the Dissimilarity of Colour in the Human Species.
Rushton regained his sight in 1807 following an operation by Manchester surgeon Benjamin Gibson, thus enabling him to see his wife and children for the first time in 33 years. His wife Isabella died a short time later in 1811 as well as one of his daughters. Rushton died on 22nd November 1814 of paralysis at his home in Paradise Street and was buried in St.James' Churchyard, Liverpool.
Sources
W. Shepherd, (Memoir of Edward Rushton: )Poems and other writings - with a sketch of a life of the Author’ (1824).
Mary G. Thomas, Edward Rushton – N.I.B. Biographies No.1 (1949)
Michael W. Royden, Pioneers and Perseverance (1991) pp.25-39, p.262, portrait p.ix, print p.12, bust p.27.
H. Smithers, Liverpool – its Commerce, Statistics and Institutions (1825)
Edward Rushton Jnr, ‘Biographical Sketch of Edward Rushton’, Belfast Magazine (Dec 1814).
W.L. Rushton, Edward Rushton Jnr - Letters of a Templar (1820-1850) (1903)
Proctor Literary Reminiscences (1860) p.141
T.W.M. Lund, Blindness, or Some Thoughts for Sighted People (Sermon preached in the Chapel of the Royal School for the Blind Liverpool, Feb 20th 1887) (includes Appendix A – A Sketch of the Life of Edward Rushton, the Blind Poet (1887)
Sir J.A. Picton, Memorials of Liverpool (1878) vol I p.426, vol II p.166, 215
Bowker, Liverpool Celebrities (1876)
Bannister, Worthies of the Working Classes (1854) p.7
Frazier Guide to Liverpool and Birkenhead (1855) pp.289-292
Iconography
Portrait – original by hangs in the Committee Board Room at the Royal Liverpool School for the Blind, Wavertree, Liverpool - photograph in Royden (1991).
Cameo Print – reproduction in Royden (1991)
Bust – sculpted by Gibson (1815) whereabouts unknown – missing from Blind School on their return from evacuation 1939-46 (School occupied by armed forces). A full size copy is held at the present school building Wavertree, Liverpool – photograph in Royden (1991).
Edward Rushton – Numerous Writings 1782-1806 notably;
The Dismembered Empire (1782)
West Indian Eclogues (1787)
Will Clewline (1806)
Collections:
Fugitive Pieces of Verse (1806) 1st Edition
Poems and other Writings, 2nd Edition of Fugitive, with additions - contained in Shepherd (1824)
Mike Royden (2001)
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