1 August 1834
Anti-Slavery Arch is erected in Paganhill
Local businessman and anti-slavery campaigner Henry Wyatt erects an arch to commemorate the abolition of slavery on his private estate on Farmhill Road in Stroud. This is Britain’s first anti-slavery memorial. The arch is unveiled on 1 August, the same day that the Abolition of Slavery Act of 1833, passed the previous year, comes into effect. The Act makes the purchase or ownership of enslaved people throughout much of the British colonies illegal, and this date is inscribed on the arch itself, along with the Latin inscription ‘God gave freedom. Glory be to God’.