Mary Prince

woman, abolitionist, and author

Died aged c. 45

Mary Prince (c. 1788–after 1833) was born in Devonshire Parish, Bermuda, to an enslaved family of African descent. While she was later living in London, her autobiography, The History of Mary Prince (1831), was the first account of the life of a black woman to be published in the United Kingdom. Belonging to the genre of slave narratives, this first-hand description of the brutalities of enslavement, released at a time when slavery was still legal in Bermuda and British Caribbean colonies, had a galvanising effect on the anti-slavery movement. It went through three printings in the first year. Prince had her account transcribed while living and working in England at the home of Thomas Pringle. a founder of the Anti-Slavery Society. She had gone to London with her master and his family in 1828 from Antigua.

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Commemorated on 1 plaque

Peter Hughes on Flickr

Mary Prince 1788-1833 abolitionist and author lived in a house near this site 1829

Senate House, University of London, Russell Square, London, United Kingdom where they lived