Editing Granville Sharp (section)

===The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade===
[[File:Benjamin Rush.png|thumb|Founding Father Benjamin Rush]]
Sharp was not completely alone at the beginning of the struggle: the Quakers, especially in America, were committed abolitionists. Sharp had a long and fruitful correspondence with [[Anthony Benezet]], a Quaker abolitionist in [[Pennsylvania]]. However, the Quakers were a marginal group in England, and were debarred from standing for Parliament, and they had no doubt as to who should be the chairman of the new society they were founding, The [[Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade]]. On 22 May 1787, at the inaugural meeting of the committee – nine Quakers and three [[Anglican]]s (who strengthened the committee's likelihood of influencing Parliament) – Sharp's position was unanimously agreed. In the 20 years of the society's existence, during which Sharp was ever-present at committee meetings, such was Sharp's modesty that he would never take the chair, always contriving to arrive just after the meeting had started to avoid any chance of having to take the meeting. While the committee felt it sensible to concentrate on the slave trade, Sharp felt strongly that the target should be slavery itself. On this he was out-voted, but he worked tirelessly for the Society nevertheless.<ref name="Sheppard"/>