Thomas Clarkson

Litencyc Editors (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.2.1.06: English Writing and Culture of the Romantic Period, 1789-1837.
Vol. editors: Daniel Cook (University of Dundee), Daniel Robinson (Widener University)

Dates

Born 28 Mar 1760
Died 26 Sep 1846
Activity 1785-1840

Places

Born in England
Active in England

Activities

Primary

Philantropist
Reformer

Resources

Clarkson's Works

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Thomas Clarkson was a deacon in the Church of England who devoted his life to the abolition of the slave-trade. His first essay, written at the age of 26,

An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species

(1786), led to his meeting with Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce and joining them in forming the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. Clarkson tirelessly collected evidence of the degrading and inhuman nature of the trade and published a series of works which had a powerful propagandist effect (please see our works listing). After the slave trade was abolished in the British Empire in 1807, Clarkson wrote a two-volume history of the movement,

The History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African slave-trade by the British

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157 words

Citation: Editors, Litencyc. "Thomas Clarkson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 12 December 2007 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5803, accessed 02 May 2024.]

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