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1748-1789
Born 22nd June 1748 in London. Thomas Day was educated at Corpus Christi College, Oxford from the age of 16. It was during his time at Oxford that he met Richard Lovell Edgeworth, during a vacation. They were influenced by the work of philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who denounced corruption and endeavoured to return to the simplicity of nature. Although Day studied law and was called to the bar in 1775 he never practiced. He spent his life as a philanthropist, writer and political essayist.
Day's personal life remained unsettled for most of his life. He formed an attachment with Edgeworth's sister in Ireland, but a relationship did not develop. He then embarked upon an experiment in which he visited an orphanage with a friend, John Bicknell, and chose a "flaxen-haired beauty" then aged twelve and called her Sabrina Sidney. From the Foundling Hospital in London he selected a brunette girl, Lucretia. He undertook to educate the girls with the intention of making one his wife.
Lucretia was to prove a disappointment intellectually and was placed with a milliner. Sabrina, then aged 13, went to a boarding-school in Sutton Coldfield. She, also, did not become his wife. Reluctantly, Day was to consent to her eventual marriage to Bicknell.
During his time living in Lichfield, Day was introduced to the circle of intellectuals who formed the Birmingham Lunar Society. Matthew Boulton, Erasmus Darwin and Josiah Wedgwood were members of this society, industrialists, theorists, philosophers, who were, at heart, philanthropists like Day.
Day went on to marry Esther Milnes in 1778, who agreed to live his spartan lifestyle. He believed: "We have no right to luxuries while the poor want bread."
His writing was influenced by his philosophy and the growing anti-slavery movement in Britain at the time.
The dying negro was his first poem, written originally with John Bicknell, although later editions were Day's own work. The inspiration for it came after reading a newspaper article about a slave who had committed suicide rather than be sent from his home and loved ones to work in the plantations. The poem proved a popular vehicle in the abolition campaign.
Day went on to write the anti-slavery novel The history of Sandford and Merton during his time in Surrey. He was inspired to write this novel by Richard Edgeworth's complaint that there was no suitable reading for his children. The novel is accepted as one of the best children's books of its time.
Thomas died in September 1789. Still adhering to his philosophy of treating animals with kindness he was thrown from a horse he was training and died from his injuries. He is buried at Wargrave near Henley-on-Thames.
The work marked with an asterisk (*) is available in the West Midlands Creative Literature Collection:-
The dying negro (1773)
The devoted legions (1776)
The desolation of America (1777)
Reflections on the present state of England and the
Independence of America (1782)
The history of Sandford and
Merton (1783)*
A sample chapter and the complete text of The history of Sandford and Merton is available on this web site.
More information on Thomas Day can be found at www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/day.htm along with the full text of The dying negro.
Online information about Richard Lovell Edgeworth and the Lunar Society can be found on the Lichfield Council website and at www.birminghamuk.com/lunarsociety.htm
Page created 30 August 2002 and last updated
28 October 2002
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