Many of the founding members had been involved with anti-slavery campaigning previously, and their concerns were founded on Christian precepts. There had been a revival of evangelicism which had affected both Anglicanism and dissenters alike. In common with other voluntary organisations, the new body would have a subscription system, a committee, officeholders, including a secretary. Founding members included William Wilberforce (although he did not get involved in the day-to-day running), Thomas Clarkson, Thomas Fowell Buxton, Zachary Macaulay (like Wilberforce, a member of the Anglican evangelical group known as the Clapham Sect), MP James Stephen, businessman and philanthropist James Cropper, Quaker banker and philanthropist Samuel Gurney, and Thomas Babington Macaulay. Thomas Pringle was secretary, and others who became involved with the society or who supported it included radical MP and dissenter William Smith; the Whig lawyers Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux, Thomas Denman, 1st Baron Denman, the judge Stephen Lushington, and James Mackintosh; Quaker scientists William Allen and Luke Howard; and Irish political leader Daniel O'Connell.