William Rosoce is one of Liverpool's most famous sons. Being an Abolitionist however, he was revered more in America and Europe than in his own town, where merchants feared ruin if the slave trade ended.
He was born in 1753 and lived in Liverpool all his life until his death in 1831. An American sympathiser in the War of Independence, his first poem speaking out against the slave trade was Mount Pleasant. In 1806 he wrote The Butterfly Ball and Grasshoppers Feast, which became a childrens classic and was re-published as late as 1973, as well as being developed into a musical.
Roscoe was more than just a writer. He served as an MP for Liverpool, a solicitor, banker and naturalist.
On his death, a town in Ohio was re-named after him. Roscoe was buried in the graveyard of the Liverpool Unitarian Chapel. This is now a small garden named in his honour. Two pubs and two streets in Liverpool are also named after him. |
