I think you will find that is a urban myth. The Athenaeum was founded by the liberals of Liverpool including William Roscoe would was responsible for promoting the anti slavery Bill along with Wilberforce. He became the MP for Liverpool soley to push the Bill through Parliament and then resigned after he was successful. He was also beaten up by sailors in Castle street because they were fearful of losing their jobs if slavery was abolished.



If you know of any Athenaeum proprietors who were slavers I would very much like to know who they were. I think you mean the Lyceum club members who were slavers as they were the conservatives of the town.