Elizabeth Heyrick (1769 – 1831) was an English philanthropist and campaigner against the slave trade. She supported immediate, rather than gradual, abolition.
In the early 19th century, the prominent leaders of the British abolitionist movement, William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, believed that when the slave trade was abolished 1807, slavery itself would gradually die out. However, this proved to be not the case as without legislation, planters refused to relinquish their enslaved property. Campaigners such as Heyrick wanted complete and immediate abolition of slavery as an institution. A decade after the abolition of the trade, it became clear to the movement that slavery itself would not die out gradually. As a strong supporter of complete emancipation, she decided to address the leaders of the abolitionist movement. In 1823 or 1824, Heyrick published a pamphlet entitled "Immediate, not Gradual Abolition", criticising leading anti-slavery campaigners such as Wilberforce for their assumptions that the institution of slavery would gradually die out and for focusing too much on the slave trade: "The West Indian planters have occupied much too prominent a place in the discussion of this great question. The abolitionists have shown a great deal too much politeness and accommodation towards these gentlemen." However, "this pamphlet changed their view", and "they now attacked slavery as a sin to be forsaken immediately".
Heyrick encouraged a social movement to boycott sugar from the West Indies. Heyrick believed that women should be involved in these issues as they were qualified "not only to sympathise with suffering, but also to plead for the oppressed."
