By the Georgian period there were between 10,000 and 15,000 black people living in Britain. Many had been enslaved.

It is estimated that between 1700 and 1810, British merchants transported almost three million African people across the Atlantic, forcing them into slavery in colonies in America and the Caribbean

The abolition movement was formed to end slavery and one of the most important abolitionists in Britain was Olaudah Equiano.  

Originally from the Eboe (Igbo) region of the Kingdom of Benin (today southern Nigeria) he was enslaved as a child in Africa. His autobiography entitled –The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1789) which depicted the horrors of slavery, played an important role in abolishing the British slave trade.