In 1787, Josiah Wedgwood, the British ceramics manufacturer, created an anti-slavery medallion in its classical, low-relief house style.  This medallion is the OG protest button, and it was circulated free to abolitionist societies to be pinned to clothing of reformers. It starts a trend that has influenced the world of protest, politics and charity ever since.

Industrialist and nonconformist

Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) was your quintessential entrepreneur.  Growing up in the clay fields of the English Midlands, Wedgwood had a childhood surrounded by mud, clay and pottery.  A tireless innovator he experimented with glazes and kilns to create mass produced ceramics – fine, decorative vessels to hold colonial luxury imports like tea, coffee and sugar on the tables of the aristocracy and rising middle class.

Wedgwood also pioneered modern retail showrooms – bright, airy stores filled with table settings and decorative displays – catalogues, and even money-back guarantees. And he championed modern transportation in the form of canals with barges towed from factory door to seaport to prevent breakage of his fragile product.

Wedgwood was a nonconformist.  It’s a term that encompasses a number of Protestant sects, such as Quakers, Puritans and Unitarians, that prioritized conscience and a personal relationship with God.  The nonconformists rejected the acts or rules of Church of England (Anglicans).  Moreover, they were excluded from elected office, civil service and even university education in the 18th century.  From outside the faith and the establishment came a tradition of protest.

A Sign of Conscience

In the 1780s, there was a growing anti-slavery movement in Britain focused on stopping the trans-Atlantic slave trade.  In 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, arguably the first peaceful social movement in British history, asked Wedgwood to create an official ‘seal’ or logo for their campaign.  The ceramic medallion has a raised image of a black man on a white background on one knee with chains and manacles on his wrists and ankles.  Around the outer edge is the question: “Am I not a man and a brother?”

Protesters wore the medallion around the neck and pinned to clothing.  In the 20 years before Parliament abolished the slave trade in 1807, the button came in multiple colours and styles, but always with the same urgent image and message.  Slave ownership finally became illegal in the British colonies in 1833.

The Wedgwood medallion was both sign of the wearer’s conscience and a provocation – a call for moral and political change.  It confronted the ruling class to be better.  Using the same china out of which the King drank his tea, the button repurposed the most fashionable brand of ceramics.  Worn on the body, the badge was a personal statement.  It educated and inspired social change by being in the face of others.  It was a symbol of a moral movement from outside the political establishment.  Everything about this style of protest was new.

Charity v. Political Change

Buttons and slogans – physical and virtual – are now ubiquitous in the social change space.  Charities use buttons to promote causes and create awareness, but the relationship between social change and “charity” is farther apart than most people think.  In charity law, and the common law Canada inherited from Britain, this division goes back to Wedgwood’s time.

In charity law, changing the law is not a charitable purpose, but upholding the law can be.  That’s why activist registered charities – like Ecojustice Canada and LEAF – can use litigation in the courts only to uphold the law.  Dying with Dignity‘s charitable status was annulled by CRA after it was accidentally registered to change a law.  Charities can advocate for issues aligned with their missions, but they can’t engage in partisan politics.  Political change movements must use not-for-profit organizations.

Wedgwood’s experience provides insight into the inherent conservatism of charity law.  In Britain, only the Anglican establishment could be elected to Parliament, occupy the bench, and make laws.  The social order is different in Canada but the conservatism of charity law remains today.

The nonconformists, by contrast, were outsiders.  The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was the first social change not-for-profit organization. Founded by Quakers and other nonconformists, it said public good starts with moral action.  Their actions attacked the entrenched political and economic interest of the time.  The interplay of these issues and structures continue to this day.