Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

May I begin by saying that it is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North (Ms Johnson), who spoke with great pride and passion about her constituency? I am particularly pleased that she spoke in great detail about William Wilberforce, because that gives me an excuse to wax lyrical about one of the famous sons of my own constituency. May I congratulate the Government on finding time for this important debate? I congratulate the Deputy Prime Minister on his role in it and on making sure that the celebrations this year are as good and wide-ranging as possible. The debate has been marked by a number of excellent speeches, including the historical tour de force by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague). He has an advantage over most of us, because he has written a book on William Wilberforce and thus researched the subject. My hon. Friends were a little unkind in asking him penetrating, detailed questions that they would not put to a professor of history, but it is a mark of his great talent that he could deal with them brilliantly. I was taken, too, with the forthright, informative and thought-provoking contributions from the hon. Members for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) and for Brent, South (Ms Butler). It is right that we should hold this debate to celebrate—that is the key word—the bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act 1807 but what, in fact, are we celebrating? First, and obviously, we are celebrating those men and women who made individual contributions to the great cause of the 18th and 19th centuries—people such as William Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, James Ramsay and Thomas Clarkson, as well as thousands of ordinary people, many slaves and freed slaves who supported the campaign against the slave trade. They had the moral passion, the sheer tenacity, dedication, fortitude, vision and single-mindedness to overcome tremendous odds and setbacks too numerous to mention to achieve their goals. When they started their campaign, nothing was inevitable or predetermined. They campaigned to abolish the slave trade—that took them 20 years to accomplish—then they went on to abolish slavery throughout the British colonies, which took them a further 26 years. Secondly, we are celebrating places with connections to those great social pioneers—the towns and villages the length and breadth of the country that take immense pride in their famous sons and daughters. The obvious example is William Wilberforce, with his roots in, and political representation of, the great city of Kingston upon Hull, but there are many others—notably Thomas Clarkson, who was born and raised in Wisbech in the Isle of Ely in my constituency of North-East Cambridgeshire. As well as spatial connections, there are connections primarily among Christian groups and denominations, which came together in common cause and buried sectarian differences to provide a united and coherent front. Chief among those denominations, as we have heard many times in the debate, were the Quakers, whose selfless and self-effacing devotion to the campaign cannot be overstated. They were closely followed by evangelists and Anglicans such as Thomas Clarkson. Indeed, the first meaningful and formal anti-slavery group—the committee for effecting the abolition of the slave trade—was established in 1787 and was composed of nine Quakers and four Anglicans. In an intervention, the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) told the House that all Anglican bishops were against abolition, but my research did not show that that was the case. The bishops may have opposed abolition, but many ordinary Anglican communicants, including Thomas Clarkson, were very much involved in the movement. The formal birth of the campaign in 1787 was probably one of the first examples of political campaigning and lobbying as we know them today. At the time, however, there were no easy and fast means of communication, let alone decent overland transport: no telephone, no photography, no television, no telegraphy or e-mail; no trains or automobiles—just a slow and rudimentary postal service, horse-drawn coaches and one’s trusty nag. We should certainly celebrate the incredible fortitude of all those involved who overcame those massive challenges to persuade others and change public perceptions. We should celebrate, too, the role of our fledgling parliamentary democracy in that process. Although the campaign was unacceptably protracted in today’s terms, it was nevertheless one of the earliest examples of public opinion overcoming powerful vested economic interests through the use of petitions and lobbying—a point well made by the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington. Finally, we should celebrate the forerunner of human rights pressure groups and mark the establishment in 1823 of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, which later became the Anti-Slavery Society. There is therefore much to celebrate in this bicentenary year, but paramount is the contribution of the key players. Abolition was without doubt a people process, and although much of the praise has rightly gone to William Wilberforce, I trust that the House will forgive my indulgence if I share with it the massive contribution of Thomas Clarkson, who was born in 1760 in Wisbech in my constituency, the son of John Clarkson, headmaster of Wisbech free grammar school. Thomas Clarkson is, without doubt, that Georgian gem of a town’s most famous son, and Wisbech town centre is dominated by a 70 ft-high monument to him, which was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott and erected in 1881 following public subscription. Thomas Clarkson showed immense intellectual promise as a young man at St. John’s College, Cambridge university, which is my alma mater. By strange coincidence, as the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, North said, it is the college that William Wilberforce attended. I do not know whether Wilberforce and Clarkson knew each other at college, but it is remarkable that the two central figures in the campaign went to the same Cambridge college. Clarkson entered a Latin essay competition in 1785. The essay question was, ““Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?”” The research that he did for the essay changed Clarkson’s life, as it challenged him to consider the question of the slave trade. After winning the prize, he decided to go to London to have the essay translated and printed in English. When he stopped at the village of Wadesmill, which is now on the A10 somewhere in Hertfordshire, he experienced what he called a spiritual revelation from God. He wrote:"““A thought came into my mind that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end””." It was that experience that ““ordered”” him to devote his life to abolishing the trade. Clarkson’s work on the issue in the early years brought him into contact with influential men such as James Ramsay and Granville Sharp. In May 1787, Clarkson was one of the three pioneering Anglicans, along with Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, who formed the committee for effecting the abolition of the slave trade— a small non-denominational group that lobbied for greater public and parliamentary support. Clarkson agreed to play a leading part in the affairs of the committee, and he took responsibility for collecting information and researching the issues to support the committee’s case. He faced much opposition from supporters of the trade in the many of the cities that he visited, as the slave traders were an influential group and the trade itself was seen at that time as legitimate, lucrative and responsible for the prosperity of ports such as Liverpool and Bristol. Indeed, on an early visit to Liverpool in 1787 he was attacked and nearly killed by a gang of sailors who had been paid to assassinate him. He only just escaped with his life. In the same year, 1787, Clarkson published his pamphlet, ““A Summary View of the Slave Trade and of the Probable Consequences of its Abolition.”” Clarkson was very effective at giving the committee a high public profile, spending the next seven years riding around England promoting the cause and gathering evidence. The sheer magnitude of this endeavour takes one’s breath away. He covered some 35,000 miles, mainly on horseback. History does not tell us whether it was the same horse, but I doubt it, poor thing—I am sure he changed horses frequently. In the course of his journeys he interviewed almost 20,000 sailors and people involved in the trade. He obtained equipment used on the slave ships, such as iron handcuffs, leg shackles, thumb screws, instruments for forcing open slaves’ jaws, and branding irons, which he showed in his publications and at the many public meetings at which he spoke.