Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

That’s all right, then. We are indeed promoting Wisbech and Thomas Clarkson and doing our bit for the Westminster Hall exhibition. Clarkson copied out the muster rolls at the Merchants hall. He got together a support group to initiate a huge signature gathering operation for petitions to Parliament, and he met local newspaper editors to persuade them to print articles against the trade. All the time he continued to write against the slave trade, filling his works with descriptions that he had heard first hand from sailors, surgeons and others who had been involved in the traffic, such as the account of a sailor who had served aboard a slave ship, which was published in 1789 as ““An Essay on the Slave Trade””. In the previous year Clarkson had published his ““Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade””, which was printed in large numbers. These works provided a firm basis for the first and ground-breaking abolitionist speech that William Wilberforce made in the House of Commons on 12 May 1789, which was mentioned by the Deputy Prime Minister and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks. It was Clarkson’s research that formed the basis of the 12 propositions in Wilberforce’s speech. As the House heard earlier in the debate, Wilberforce introduced the first Bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791, but that was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88. As he continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before Parliament, Clarkson continued to travel and write anti-slavery material, and played a huge role in generating favourable public opinion towards the Bill. This was the beginning of a protracted parliamentary campaign during which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition almost every year. Between them, Clarkson, Wilberforce and the other members of the committee and their supporters were responsible for generating and sustaining a national movement which mobilised public opinion as never before. Parliament, however, refused continually to pass the Bill, and the outbreak of war with France effectively prevented further debate for many years. By 1794 Clarkson’s health was failing and he was suffering from exhaustion. He retired from the campaign and spent some time in the lake district, where he bought an estate at Ullswater and became a friend of the poet William Wordsworth, by an incredible coincidence another old Johnian. In 1804, when the war with France appeared to be almost over, the slave trade campaign revived again. After 10 years, Clarkson’s temporary retirement was also over, and he once again got on his horse to travel all over Great Britain to canvass support for the measure. He seems to have returned with all his old enthusiasm and vigour, and was especially active in persuading MPs to back the parliamentary campaign. After the passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807 Clarkson’s efforts were directed mainly towards ensuring the enforcement of the Act and seeking to further the campaign in the rest of Europe. He travelled to Paris in 1814 and Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, with the aim of arriving at an internationally agreed timetable for abolition. After 1823, when the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery, later the Anti-Slavery Society, was formed, Clarkson once again travelled the length of the country, covering some 10,000 miles, activating the vast network of sympathetic anti-slavery societies that had been formed. This resulted in 777 petitions being delivered to Parliament demanding the total emancipation of slaves. When the society finally adopted a policy of immediate emancipation, he and Wilberforce appeared together for the last time to lend their support. In 1833 the Slavery Abolition Act was finally passed. Wilberforce died just three days afterwards, knowing that his life’s work had come to fruition. Clarkson lived on for a further 13 years. Although his eyesight was failing, he continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery, focusing on abolition in the United States. At the grand old age of 80, he was the principal speaker at the opening of the anti-slavery convention in Freemasons hall, London in 1840, attended by 5,000 people, where he was accorded a silent standing tribute. With typical modesty he told the audience:"““I stand before you as a humble individual whose life has been intimately connected with this subject. I can say with truth that though my body is going to decay, my heart beats as warmly in this sacred cause as it did at the age of 24 when I first took it up, and I can say further with truth, that if I had another life given to me to live, I would devote it to the same object””." Possibly because of a public spat with Wilberforce’s sons after Wilberforce’s death, and perhaps because one of his later books rather over-egged his own contribution to the abolition movement, Clarkson’s place in history seemed to be completely eclipsed by that of Wilberforce. However, in 1996, 150 years after his death, a fitting monument to him was unveiled in Westminster abbey—most appropriately, next door to that of his lifelong friend and colleague, William Wilberforce. As many Members have said, slavery is still with us today in forms such as human trafficking, the sex trade—for which we learned that Britain seems to be the No. 1 destination—bonded labourers, and more. We need more Thomas Clarksons in this legislature and many others throughout the world to step forward to complete his work. There are those who say that we should apologise for our pivotal role in the slave trade, but I say that we should not. It took place at a time in history when the majority of people worldwide were ignorant of its true nature or saw no moral wrong in it. Its economic success—I say that because it provided a lucrative trade and business for many people over about a century—was based on co-operation with Arab traders and some local African tribes; we now learn of the role that the Ashanti tribe played in this grotesque trade in modern Ghana. Are they all going to apologise as well? I think not. However, it is right to express our sincere regret and to acknowledge that we have learned important lessons about attitudes to racism and racial stereotyping. We should be thankful for, and celebrate wholeheartedly, the fact that it was our country that produced the moral giants of their time—our countrymen and women who, against all the odds and with incredible dedication, changed society fundamentally and irreversibly for the better. We owe them a deep debt of gratitude. Their moral fortitude is something that we modern politicians should return to before too long.