The first biography of Zachary Macaulay - the ‘engineer’ of the anti-slavery movement in Britain. He was never an orator or organiser of meetings but through careful research and publication of the facts, providing the vital resources for the parliamentary and public campaign.

A prominent British anti-slavery campaigner, Zachary Macaulay devoted forty years of exhaustive research to combating what he called a “foul stain on the nation,” and his work was instrumental in laying the foundation for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. With a focus on his unswerving commitment to the cause, this biography—the first of its kind—examines Macaulay's life and the people and events that influenced it. Zachary Macaulay 1768–1838 illustrates the man behind the writings—his passions and his prejudices, his shyness and steely resolve, and, above all, his willingness to work unremittingly in the background, generating the power to drive the engine of anti-slavery to victory.