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The London Committee and mobilization of public opinion against the slave trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2010

J. R. Oldfield
J. R. Oldfield
Affiliation:
University of Southampton
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Abstract

During the late eighteenth century organized anti-slavery, in the shape of the campaign to end the African slave trade (1787–1807), became an unavoidable feature of political life in Britain. Drawing on previously unpublished material in the Josiah Wedgwood Papers, the following article seeks to reassess this campaign and, in particular, the part played in it by the (London) Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. So far from being a low-level lobby, as historians like Seymour Drescher have suggested, it is argued here that the Committee's activities, both in terms of opinion-building and arranging for petitions to be sent to the house of commons, were central to the success of the early abolitionist movement. Thus while the provinces and public opinion at the grass roots level were undoubtedly important, not least in the industrial north, it was the metropolis and the London Committee which gave political shape and significance to popular abolitionism.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 35 , Issue 2 , June 1992 , pp. 331 - 343
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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References

1 Davis, David Brion, Slavery and human progress (New York, 1984)Google Scholar; Drescher, Seymour, Capitalism and antislavery: British mobilization in comparative perspective (New York, 1987)Google Scholar; Walvin, James, England, slaves and freedom (London, 1987)Google Scholar.

2 This tendency is particularly evident in the work of Drescher, Seymour. See Capitalism and antislavery, pp. 2, 67–88Google Scholar.

3 Clarkson, Thomas, The history of the rise, progress and accomplishment of the African slave trade by the British parliament (2 vols., London, 1808), 1, 249–58;Google ScholarAnstey, Roger, The Atlantic slave trade and British abolition, 1760–1810 (London, 1975), pp. 250–4;CrossRefGoogle ScholarPollock, John, Wilberforce (London, 1977), pp. 55–8Google Scholar.

4 Clarkson, , History, I, 122–30Google Scholar.

5 Biographical files, London, Friends House Library; ‘Memoirs of Samuel Hoare’, Friends House Library, Box 376/6; Lloyd, Humphrey, The Quaker Lloyds in the industrial revolution (London, 1975) PP. 145–202Google Scholar; Memoir of the life of Richard Phillips (London, 1841)Google Scholar; Friends House Library, Matthews MSS, A1/5.

6 Abolition Committee Minutes, 10 May 1791, London, British Library, Add. MSS 21256. These minutes are arranged in three volumes as follows: Add. MSS 21254 (22 May 1787–26 Feb. 1788); Add. MSS 21255 (5 March 1788–7 July 1791); Add. MSS 21256 (20 July 1790–1819).

7 Thomas Furly Forster was elected a member of the Committee on 1 November 1791, Benjamin Meggot Forster on 13 March 1792.

8 For Clarkson see his History and Griggs, Earl Leslie, Thomas Clarkson, the friend of slaves (London, 1936).Google Scholar Clarkson's reputation undoubtedly suffered as a result of Robert, and Samuel, Wilberforce's Life of William Wilberforce (5 vols., London 1838),Google Scholar in which he was dismissed as a hack with an exaggerated sense of his own importance. The offending passages were removed from subsequent editions of the Wilberforces’ book, but for many scholars Clarkson remains the maverick of British anti-slavery. See, for instance, the picture of him that emerges in Pollock's, JohnWilberforce, esp. pp. 55–8Google Scholar.

9 For Clarkson's alleged extravagance see Abolition Committee Minutes, 7 August 1787 and John Barton to William Roscoe, 15 August 1787, Liverpool, Liverpool Record Office, Roscoe Papers, 920 ROS/243. Clarkson discusses the unpopularity of his views with regard to the French revolution in a letter to Josiah Wedgwood of 18 April 1794, Keele University, Wedgwood Papers, 24743.32.

10 Abolition Committee Minutes, 22 May 1787.

11 Phillips had been trading with Wedgwood since at least 1785, Wedgwood Papers, 24260 66.124. Phillips's relationship with Walker is not clear but it is interesting to note that his (Walker's) name appears on the Committee's original list of subscribers. Wedgwood Papers, 21074. III.

12 In a little over fifteen months the Committee printed and distributed 79,733 pamphlets, reports and circular letters, including 15,050 copies of Clarkson's A summary view of the slave trade and of the probable consequences of its abolition (1787). Abolition Committee Minutes, 29 July 1788.

13 Wedgwood was elected a member of the Committee on 27 August 1787.

14 McKendrick, Neil, ‘Josiah Wedgwood and the commercialization of the Potteries’ in McKendrick, Neil, Brewer, John and Plumb, J. H., The birth of a consumer society: the commercialization of eighteenth-century England (London, 1982), pp. 122–3.Google Scholar Wedgwood attended 7 meetings of the Committee in 1788, 1 in 1789, 6 in 1790, 4 in 1791, 4 in 179a and 1 in 1793. His son, Josiah Wedgwood, junior, was elected a member of the Committee in 1791.

15 Clarkson, , History, II, 191–2.Google Scholar For another example of Wedgwood's keen business sense see Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Clarkson, 18 Jan. 1792, Wedgwood Papers, E18990.26.

16 Wedgwood Papers, 21073. III. I am greatly indebted to the Trustees of the Wedgwood Museum, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England for permission to quote from these papers.

17 Abolition Committee Minutes, 16 Oct. 1787. My italics.

18 Clarkson, , History, I, 415–16.Google Scholar Clarkson's sermon on the abolition of the slave trade, delivered on 30 October, was the first of its kind in Manchester. Thomas Seddon was scheduled to speak on the same subject on 21 October, but his sermon was later postponed until 30 December. See Manchester Mercury, 9 Oct. and 25 Dec. 1787; Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, p. 213 (n. 26)Google Scholar.

19 Pollock, , Wilberforce, p. 74Google Scholar.

20 Abolition Committee Minutes, I, 8, 22 Jan. 1788.

21 See, for example, Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, pp. 67–88Google Scholar.

22 Hunt, E.M., ‘The North of England agitation for the abolition of the slave trade, 1780–1800’, M.A. thesis, University of Manchester, 1959Google Scholar; Robinson, Lillie, ‘Thomas Walker and Manchester polities’, B.A. thesis, University of Manchester, 1931.Google Scholar While the decision to petition was made late in December 1787 the actual form of a petition was not adopted until 7 January 1788. The Manchester petition finally reached the house of commons on 11 February, by which date York, Bedford, Hull, Norfolk, the City of London, Ripon, Maidstone, Southampton, Huntingdon and Birmingham in one form or another had all petitioned parliament. See Manchester Mercury, I,8 Jan. and 5, 12, 19 Feb. 1788; Commons Journal, XLIII (1788), 159, 166, 187, 198–9, 22OGoogle Scholar.

23 Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, pp. 67, 71Google Scholar.

24 Ibid. pp. 70, 210–11 (n. 1 7). See also Anstey, , The Atlantic slave trade, pp. 263, 265–6.Google Scholar It was the Manchester Committee, he argues, ‘which sought to give abolitionist public opinion a cutting edge by the organization of petitions to Parliament’.

25 Manchester Mercury, 9, 16 Oct. 1787; Clarkson, , History, I, 415–16;Google Scholar Abolition Committee Minutes, 30 Oct. 1787.

26 Clarkson, , History, I, 415–16;Google ScholarManchester Mercury, II Dec. 1787. Drescher misreads this letter, or, at least, seems to rely on the somewhat garbled version of it in Robinson, , ‘Thomas Walker and Manchester polities’, p. 14Google Scholar.

27 Abolition Committee Minutes, 11, 18 Dec. 1787 and 1 jan. 1788; Manchester Mercury, 18Dec. 1787.

28 Abolition Committee Minutes, 18 Dec. 1787. The relevant minute reads: ‘A letter received from Thos. Cooper and others dated Manchester, 1 ith Dec. 1787 was read, which the Treasurer [Hoare] informed the Committee he had written a short reply to, the Meeting at Manchester being to be held on the 20th.’ Such business was normally transacted by the Committee in full session.

29 Machester Mercury, 1 Jan. 1788; John Barton to William Roscoe, 21 Jan. 1788, Roscoe Papers, 920 ROS/239. It is perhaps worth noting that Barton was considered one of the more cautious members of the Committee.

30 Abolition Committee Minutes, 22, 29 Jan., 5, 12, 26 Feb., 5, 11 March 1788.

31 The words are Wilberforce's discussing the setting up of ‘country committees’. Abolition Committee Minutes, 29 July 1788.

32 Commons Journal, XLIII (1788), 156ff.Google Scholar and index; Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, p. 76Google Scholar.

33 See, for example, the petitions from Salisbury and Taunton, , Salisbury Journal, 24 04 1788Google Scholar and Sherborne Mercury, 21 April 1788.

34 Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, p. 77Google Scholar.

35 Commons Journal, XLIII (1788), 159ff. and indexGoogle Scholar.

36 Anstey, , The Atlantic slave trade, pp. 265–7Google Scholar.

37 Abolition Committee Minutes, 16 Feb. 1788.

38 Ibid. 6 May 1788.

39 Ibid. 13 May and 24 June 1788.

40 Ibid. 12 August 1788.

41 Ibid. 26 August 1788.

42 Clarkson, , History, II, 4–7Google Scholar. Clarkson also claimed to be responsible for organizing a committee in Exeter, but in this case the impetus seems to have come from Granville Sharp and a local activist, Milford, Samuel. Sherborne Mercury, 16 06 1788Google Scholar.

43 Abolition Committee Minutes, 19 Feb. and 1 April 1788; Morning Chronicle, 23 Dec. 1788; Sherborne Mercury, 24 Nov. 1788.

44 Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, p. 76Google Scholar; Sherborne Mercury, 8, 22, 29 Dec. 1788, 19 Jan., 16 Feb., 2 March 1789, 1 Feb. 1790, 23 Jan., 6 Feb. 1792.

45 Abolition Committee Minutes, 3 March 1789. See also 24, 31 March, 6, 14, 21, 28 April, 5 May 1789.

46 Anstey, , The Atlantic slave trade, pp. 271–2Google Scholar.

47 Abolition Committee Minutes, 14 July 1789.

48 Sherborne Mercury, 4 Jan. 1790.

49 William Dickson, ‘Diary of a visit to Scotland, 5th. January-19th. March 1792, on behalf of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’, Friends House Library, Temp. Box 10/14 (entry for 14 Feb.).

50 Ibid, (entry for 5 Feb.).

51 Clarkson, , History, II, 208–12, 337–9Google Scholar.

52 Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, pp. 78–9Google Scholar.

53 Wedgwood Papers, 24738B-32.

54 Anstey, , The Atlantic slave trade, p. 273Google Scholar.

55 Dickson, ‘Diary of a visit to Scotland’. All of these comments come in the form of instructions given to Dickson before he left London. They appear to be written in Clarkson's hand. See also Josiah Wedgwood to Thomas Clarkson, 18 Jan. 1792, Wedgwood Papers, E1899B–26 and Wedgwood to Rev. Mr Plymly, 2 July 1791, Wedgwood Papers, E18998–26.

56 Abolition Committee Minutes, 13 Dec. 1791; Wedgwood Papers, 24739–32 (circular letter of Jan. 1792); Joseph Woods to William Matthews, 4 March 1792, Friends House Library, Matthews MSS, A1/5.

57 Drescher, , Capitalism and antislavery, p. 80Google Scholar.

58 Ibid. p. 81.

59 Pollock, , Wilberforce, pp. 114–16Google Scholar.

60 Abolition Committee Minutes, 19 June 1792.

61 Pollock, , Wilberforce, pp. 122–3;Google ScholarClarkson, , History, II, 461–3Google Scholar.

62 Abolition Committee Minutes, 20 June, 4, 9, 30 July, 13 August 1793.

63 Ibid. 20 August 1793.

64 Clarkson, , History, II, 464, 468Google Scholar.

65 Clarkson, , History, II, 469–71.Google Scholar The Committee met twice in 1795, twice in 1796 and twice in 1797.

66 Abolition Committee Minutes, 29 April 1805.

67 Ibid. 23 April 1805.

68 Pollock, , Wilberforce, pp. 187–9, 199–214;Google ScholarAnstey, , The Atlantic slave trade, pp. 321–42Google Scholar.

69 Anstey, , The Atlantic slave trade, pp. 343–90Google Scholar.