Mary Lloyd

Mary Lloyd or Mary Hornchurch (12 March 1795 – 25 January 1865) was a British joint secretary of the first Ladies Anti-Slavery Society, founded as the Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves.

Life Mary Hornchurch was born in Falmouth in 1795 into a Quaker family. Her mother was a minister in the Society of Friends and her father was a cooper. Mary's mother died whilst she was a child and she quickly became the carer for her father when he became ill until her died in 1818. Mary was cared for by friends until she married Samuel Lloyd (1795–1862) on 12 November 1823. Samuel was to support his wife as she campaigned against slavery.

Lucy Townsend founded the first Ladies Anti-Slavery Society in Birmingham, West Midlands, on 8 April 1825. She and Lloyd were the first joint secretaries of also known as Birmingham Ladies Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, and around 1830, it became the Female Society for Birmingham. Other founding members included Elizabeth Heyrick, Sophia Sturge and Sarah Wedgwood.

By 1831, there were over seventy similar anti-slavery organisations. Townsend's organisation was publicised in America and it became a role model for similar organisations in the USA.

Whilst she was in Birmingham she started an organisation to assist deaf-mutes with Lucy Townsend. Lloyd continued as Honorary secretary when Townsend resigned when she moved to Thorpe in Nottinghamshire in 1836. Townsend remained as a committee member

Lloyd died in Wood Green in 1865.