Moncure Daniel Conway

Clergyman and abolitionist, born in Stafford Co, Virginia, USA. A Methodist turned Unitarian preacher, he lectured in England on the Civil War, and became a pastor in London (1864–97). He was active in the cause to abolish slavery, and in 1862 became co-editor of an anti-slavery newspaper, Commonwealth.

Moncure Daniel Conway (March 17, 1832 - November 5, 1907), was an American clergyman and author.

He was born of an old Virginia family in Stafford County, Virginia.

He graduated at Dickinson College in 1849, studied law for a year, and then became a Methodist minister in his native state. After graduation from Harvard University, Conway accepted a call to the First Unitarian Church of Washington, D.C., where he was ordained in 1855, but his anti-slavery views brought about his dismissal in 1856.

On his return to Virginia, his abolitionist stance and his rumoured connection with the attempt to rescue the fugitive slave, Anthony Burns, in Boston, Massachusetts, aroused the bitter hostility of his old neighbours and friends.

While in Cincinnati, Conway married Ellen Davis Dana. Despite the previous tension with his family over slavery issues, Conway nevertheless brought his bride to meet his family. After this, it would take seventeen years before Conway reconciled with his family.

Subsequently he became editor of the Commonwealth in Boston, and wrote The Rejected Stone (1861) and The Golden Hour (1862), both powerful pleas for emancipation. In 1862, after spending more and more time away from his church advancing the abolitionist cause, Conway left its ministry.

In 1863, Conway was asked by American abolitionists to go to London to convince the United Kingdom that the American Civil War was a war of abolition. Under English influence, Conway eventually contacted the Confederate States of America "on behalf of the leading antislavery men of America," offering the preservation of the Confederacy after the war's end in exchange for emancipation of the slaves.

Upon return to London, he became the minister of the South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London. The congregation and Conway soon left fellowship with the Unitarian Church. During this time, Conway wrote frequently for the London press. Conway's many literary and intellectual friends included Charles Dickens, Robert Browning, Thomas Carlyle, Charles Lyell, and Charles Darwin.

In the 1870s and 1880s, he returned on and off to the United States. In 1897, Conway and his wife returned from London to New York City. As the Spanish American War approached, Conway became disaffected with his countrymen. Conway died alone in his Paris apartment on November 15, 1907. The Conway Hall in Holborn, London is named in his honour.

In addition to those publications mentioned above, Conway's publications include:

Tracts for To-day (1858) The Natural History of the Devil (1859) Testimonies Concerning Slavery (1864) The Earthward Pilgrimage (1870) Republican Superstitions (1872) Idols and Ideals (1871) Demonology and Devil Lore (2 vols., 1878) A Necklace of Stories (1879) Thomas Carlyle (1881) The Wandering Jew (1881) Emerson at Home and Abroad (1882) Pine and Palm (2 vols., 1887) Life and Papers of Edmund Randolph (1888) The Life of Thomas Paine with an unpublished sketch of Paine by William Cobbett (2 vols., 1892) Solomon and Solomonic Literature (1899) his Autobiography (2 vols, 1900) My Pilgrimage to the Wise Men of the East (1906).