Thomas Clarkson's chest for his anti-slavery campaign - including a speculum oris to force captured people to eat

Thomas Clarkson rode 35,000 miles in 7 years with a large chest
 
Once he’d left Cambridge, young Clarkson threw himself into an extraordinary odyssey to stir up support for the cause. He reckoned he rode 35 000 miles in 7 years, interviewing sailors who’d worked on the slaving ships, and organising petitions to Parliament.

He famously carried around with him a large chest, which had in it not only the tools of slavery and oppression – manacles, leg shackles, a thumb screw and so on – but also beautiful objects crafted by African peoples, which he’d bought from sailors on the slave ships.

There were samples of wood and ivory, spices, tobacco, indigo, cotton, rope, iron knives, gold objects leather sandals, bags woven from dried grass, even a small spindle and handloom.

They were intended to reveal the civilisation and skill of West African peoples. It’s in the Wisbech and Fenland Museum, in the wild fens north of Cambridge.
 
But Clarkson himself appears to have got involved with the Abolition Society itself through a group of well-heeled Anglicans who met at Barham Court in Teston, Kent, south of London. Now this Teston circle is an intriguing little group.

Barham Court was shared by Elizabeth Bouverie and Margaret Middleton, two women deeply and impressively involved in charitable causes. They brought together – and organised - many of the leading abolitionists of the 1780s. 

#55 The woman behind the abolition of slavery - Ep 2 Money not Morality ended British Enslavement  LISTEN BY CLICKING ON ICONS 







Photos & read more - all episodes in SERIES on our website here

Self Portrait of Lady Middleton, nee Margaret Gambier 1730-1792. Artist, Abolitionist & Anti Slavery Campaigner

The real driving force behind the abolition movement was Margaret Middleton
 
Hannah More a writer and literary hostess, well known for taking up causes, was a member of the campaigning Teston Circle, in Kent. More spent weeks at the Middleton's home at Barham Court, ‘slaving till 2 o’clock every morning’ [by which she meant, working on the slavery issue.]
 
In 1791 Hannah More commented that the real driving force behind the abolition movement was Margaret Middleton.

Margaret had forfeited her inheritance when she married the naval captain of a slave ship the HMS Arundel, Charles Middleton. He retired in disillusionment, became a Conservative MP, and together they played a crucial role in the abolition of the slave trade.

They were both influenced by James Ramsay who, as a ship's surgeon under Middleton had been horrified by the treatment of enslaved people. Ramsay lived with the Middletons after leaving the Navy, and when he became ordained was made vicar of Teston and rector of Nettlestead in the Middletons' gift. He wrote an influential pamphlet: 'Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies', published in 1784.
 
It was Charles Middleton who first proposed William Wilberforce lead the campaign, and Margaret Middleton who wrote to Wilberforce and his friend from Cambridge days William Pitt who persuaded him to accept.
 
Actually, as Claire Midgeley shows in her book Women against Slavery, there were a number of women who were active abolitionists, even giving speeches at public meetings in London and debating societies.

Alongside wonderful radicals from this period like Mary Wollstencraft, this looks like one of the earliest examples of women – at least outside the Royal Court - beginning to take a lead in public affairs.