Benezet, Anthony (Jan. 31, 1713 - May 3, 1784), philanthropist and author, was born in San Quentin, in Picardy, France, the son of Jean Étienne Benezet. The family were Huguenots. Increasing persecution, following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, caused the parents in 1715 to take refuge in Rotterdam, soon leaving Holland, however, for London, where they remained sixteen years. Here the young Anthony received a liberal education, served an apprenticeship in a mercantile house, and coming under Quaker influence, joined that sect at the early age of fourteen. In 1731 the family removed to Philadelphia, bringing with them the lad of eighteen, "well recommended by divers Friends." For a brief time, Anthony appears to have been in business with his brothers, John, Philip, and Daniel, who later were successful importers of goods from London, Philip Benezet's advertisements being frequent in the Pennsylvania Gazette about 1759-60. In May 1736 Anthony Benezet married Joyce, daughter of Samuel and Mary Marriott of Burlington, N. J., and began a happy married life of forty-eight years. Dislike for the merchant's life to which he had been brought up, after a brief experience as a manufacturer in Wilmington, Del., determined him to follow his inclination to teach. Going first to the Germantown Academy, in 1742 he became a teacher in the Friends' English Public School in Philadelphia, now the William Penn Charter School, where he remained for the next twelve years. In this profession, to which the rest of his life was devoted, Benezet found congenial occupation, and an outlet for the energies of his active and altruistic mind. Finding female education defective, he established a girls' school in 1755.

At this time Benezet, always an omnivorous reader, began to be greatly interested in the amelioration of conditions among the slaves, and the reports of travelers and agents in the West Indies and in Africa aroused his pity and indignation. John Woolman of New Jersey, although seven years younger than himself, had completed his first tour among the slaveholders of the South, and their life-long intimacy resulted in Benezet's carrying on the remarkable pioneer work of Woolman, after the death of the younger man. He began to publish articles in almanacs and the papers of the day, and issued pamphlets, usually gratuitously distributed, on the subject of slavery. His knowledge of French led to a voluminous correspondence abroad with such men as the Abbé Raynal in France, and Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, and Clarkson in England. He also corresponded with Benjamin Franklin while the latter was abroad. He wrote Frederick the Great on the unlawfulness of war, and sent letters acceptably to the queens of England, France, and Portugal.

In 1766, finding himself absorbed in too many activities to carry out his philosophy of the simple life of studious leisure, and in frail health, he retired to Burlington, N. J., the early home of his wife, and sought a quieter existence. But the urge toward alleviation of at least some of the sufferings of his fellow-beings was too great to be resisted, and at the end of less than two years he was again in Philadelphia, teaching, and writing voluminously. It was probably while in Burlington that he wrote what is perhaps his most important work--A Caution and Warning to Great Britain and Her Colonies on the Calamitous State of the Enslaved Negroes (1766). This was examined and approved by the Yearly Meeting of Philadelphia in 1766, and many copies were distributed in England. It was shortly followed by his Historical Account of Guinea; Its Situation, Produce and the General Disposition of Its Inhabitants (1771), a publication which gave to Thomas Clarkson his first facts on the slave trade, and was the source of the impulse to begin his long and active protest against it.

It was natural, when the French in 1756 were expelled from Acadia, that the 500 who made their way to Philadelphia should find in Anthony Benezet their chief friend. The whole Quaker body joined him for their relief, together with the French residents, and in Philadelphia many of the Acadians found a permanent home. Benezet established and taught for the last two or three years of his life, a school for the "Blacks," which, after the death of his wife, he left his slender fortune to endow. The Overseers of the Friends' Public Schools were made the trustees. This school has been fostered ever since by the Quakers, and, merged with other and similar charities, is now (1927) the "Benezet House" of 918 Locust St., Philadelphia. In 1774 Benezet published his essay on the immoderate use of liquor, The Mighty Destroyer Displayed, which suggested to his friend, Dr. Benjamin Rush, the latter's pamphlet in 1776, Sermons to Gentlemen on Temperance and Exercise. In 1780 appeared Benezet's Short Account of the People Called Quakers; Their Rise, Religious Principles and Settlement in America. Just before his death the Indians, for whom he had long labored, and their injustices under the new Government, were engaging Benezet's attention, and he wrote Some Observations on the Situation, Disposition, and Character of the Indian Natives of This Continent (published anonymously, 1784). This is thought to have been intended as a prelude to a more extended work on the subject.