Alexander Falconbridge
Alexander Falconbridge (c. 1760–1792) was a British surgeon who took part in four voyages in slave ships between 1782 and 1787. In time he became an abolitionist and in 1788 published An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa. In 1791 he was sent by the Anti-Slavery Society to Granville Town, Sierra Leone, a community of freed slaves, where he died a year later in 1792. Early life Falconbridge was born around 1760 in England or Scotland, possibly Prestonpans or Bristol. The slave trade The British surgeon Alexander Falconbridge served as a ship's surgeon on four slave trade voyages between 1782 and 1787 (on the ships Tartar (1782), Emilia (1783-84), Alexander (1785-86) and, again, Emilia (1786-87) before rejecting the slave trade and becoming an abolitionist. Falconbridge gained his experience on slave ships before he met the anti-slavery campaigner Thomas Clarkson following which he became a member of the Anti-Slavery Society. Clarkson was the author of a pamphlet entitled A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition, published in 1787. Clarkson had a high regard for Falconbridge who on more than one occasion acted as his personal armed bodyguard whilst he