George William Alexander

George William Alexander
from The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840, by Benjamin Robert Haydon
Born	1802 London
Died	1890
Residence	Church Street, Stoke Newington
Nationality	English
Occupation	financier
Known for	Abolitionist
Title	Treasurer of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society.
Predecessor	New position
Spouse(s)	1.Sarah Cleverly Horsnaill 2.Catherine Horsnaill
Children	Three daughters and two sons
Parent(s)	William and Ann Alexander

George William Alexander (1802–1890) was an English financier and philanthropist. He was the founding Treasurer of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839. The American statesman Frederick Douglass said that he "has spent more than an American fortune in promoting the anti-slavery cause ..."

Alexander was born in London. When he was aged fourteen his father died, and Alexander had to work hard to continue his education and assist his mother, Ann, who had taken on the leadership of the company.

The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was principally a Quaker society founded in the eighteenth century by Thomas Clarkson. The slave trade had been abolished throughout the British Empire in 1807. In August 1833 the British government passed the Slavery Abolition Act, advocated by William Wilberforce, which abolished slavery in the British Empire from August 1834, when some 800,000 people in the British empire became free.

There nevertheless remained a need for a society that could continue to campaign for anti-slavery worldwide, and the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was accordingly founded in 1839. One of its first significant deeds was to organise the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840:

"The Convention assembled in London at the Free-mason's Hall, on Friday, 12 June. Our expectations, we confess, were high, and the reality did not disappooint them." A very large and detailed picture of the proceedings was commissioned that today is in the National Portrait Gallery. This very large picture shows Alexander as Treasurer of the new Society. The picture captures the meeting in 1840, but it was not complete until 1841. The new society's aim was "The universal extinction of slavery and the slave trade and the protection of the rights and interests of the enfranchised population in the British possessions and of all persons captured as slaves."