The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society was formed in 1909 through the amalgamation of the two bodies that form its name.

The roots of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society go back to the 18th century, and the beginnings of a largely Quaker-inspired movement to abolish the slave trade. However, even after the abolition of the trade in Britain in 1807, and the emancipation of slaves in the colonies in 1834, an alternative form of slavery, the 'apprenticeship system' continued until 1838 in the West Indies. Against this background, in 1823, a number of men led by William Wilberforce and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton began to meet regularly in London to discuss the slave trade and slavery in British possessions. The resulting organisation, the Committee on Slavery, later changed its name to The Society for the Amelioration and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, and in 1835 to the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, committed to ending slavery worldwide. During the 19th century, the Society campaigned on a number of related issues, including the trade in slave-cultivated sugar from Brazil and Cuba, and the East African slave trade (resulting from its close contacts with Dr. Livingstone). In the 1890s its mandate began to include the ill treatment of indigenous peoples, leading to its eventual merger with the Aborigines' Protection Society.

The Aborigines' Protection Society was founded in 1837 by Dr. Thomas Hodgkin and others through a Parliamentary Select Committee set up in 1835 to investigate means of ensuring justice, 'spreading civilization', etc. among the indigenous peoples of the Empire. Its first president was Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, and its early work included the establishment of correspondence with "intelligent and benevolent individuals abroad", the publication of several reports, including on the natives of Australia, Upper Canada and South Africa, and the general arousal of public opinion. For most of the 19th century it continued to lobby in the same geographical areas, as well as against encroachments on Native American territory, the traffic in labourers from Asia and Polynesia, and the sale of liquor to indigenous peoples.

After World War One the newly amalgamated British and Foreign Anti-Slavery and Aborigines' Protection Society attempted to work with the League of Nations to make the respect of human rights part of international law. This work culminated in 1956 with the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which listed and defined all slave-related practices. In 1975 it campaigned for the setting up of a panel of experts in the United Nations, later known as the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery. In 1990 the Society changed its name to Anti-Slavery International. Its main current areas of interest include debt bondage, the trafficking of human beings and the worst forms of child labour.

In terms of related organisations relevant to this collection, the Mico Charity administered funds for the education of former slaves (though the legacy was not used for this purpose until after the establishment of the apprenticeship system in the West Indies and the subsequent setting up of schools for apprentices and their children); the National Freedmen's Aid Society was in close communication with an American society of the same name established after the Civil War; and the Committee for the Welfare of Africans in Europe was formed during World War One to protect the welfare of native labour contingents in France and to care for native fighting forces.

Anti-Slavery International was formed in 1839 as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Over the years the organisation's name has changed several times: