Joseph Sturge (1793-1859) was a Quaker corn merchant who campaigned for the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of the British working class. He created "Free Villages" in the Caribbean.

The memorial by John Thomas, which was installed in 1862, portrays him in marble on a stone plinth as a preacher flanked by an allegory of Peace holding a dove, olive branch and lamb and an allegory of Charity, comforting two Afro-Caribbean children.

Three fountains, once part of the memorial, have been lost.

It is an iron box with Gothic-style decoration on a 7-metre column that dominates the approach to the Five Ways traffic island at the convergence of Calthorpe Road and Harborne Road.