Clapham Sect

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The Clapham Sect was an influential group of like-minded social reformers in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century (active c. 1790 – 1830).

[edit] Campaigns and successes

Its members were chiefly prominent and wealthy evangelical Anglicans who shared common political views concerning the liberation of slaves, the abolition of the slave trade and the reform of the penal system.

The group's name originates from Clapham, then a village south of London (today part of south-west London), where both Wilberforce and Thornton, the sect's two most influential leaders, resided and where many of the group's meetings were held. They were supported by Beilby Porteus, Bishop of London, who sympathised with many of their aims.

After many decades of work both in British society and in Parliament, the group saw their efforts rewarded with ther final passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, banning the trade throughout the British Empire and, after many further years of campaigning, the total emancipation of British slaves with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to eradicate slavery throughout the world.

Lampooned in their day as "the saints", the group published a journal, the Christian Observer, edited by Zachary Macaulay and were also credited with the foundation of several missionary and tract societies, including the British and Foreign Bible Society and the Church Missionary Society.

[edit] Members

Members of The Clapham Sect included:

Thomas Clarkson (1760 – 1846), classicist and campaigner
Edward James Eliot (1758 – 1797), parliamentarian
Thomas Gisbourne (1758 – 1846), clergyman and author
Charles Grant (1746 – 1823), administrator, chairman of the directors of the British East India Company, father of the first Lord Glenelg
Zachary Macaulay (1768 – 1838), estate manager, colonial governor, father of Thomas Babington Macaulay
Hannah More (1745 – 1835), writer and philanthropist
Granville Sharp (1735 – 1813), scholar and administrator
Charles Simeon (1759 – 1836), Anglican minister, promoter of missions
William Smith (1756 – 1835), M.P. for Norwich, grandfather of Florence Nightingale
James Stephen (1758 – 1832), Master of Chancery
Lord Teignmouth (1751 – 1834), Governor-General of India
Henry Thornton (1760 – 1815), economist, banker, philanthropist, MP for Southwark, grandfather of writer E.M. Forster
Henry Venn (1725 – 1797), founder of the group
John Venn (1759 – 1813), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Clapham
William Wilberforce (1759 – 1833), MP for Kingston upon Hull, leading abolitionist