Clarkson, Thomas (1760-1846)

3 autograph letters, signed, by Thomas Clarkson, nos. 1 and 2 dated 1841 and 1842, and no.3 undated.

mid 19th century

1 file (3 items)

Purchased from Glendining, London, February 1932 (acc.67678) and Sothebys, June 1994 (acc.349517).

Thomas Clarkson was born in 1760 at the grammar school, Wisbech, where his father, the Rev. John Clarkson, was headmaster. He studied at St. Paul's School, London, and at St. John's College, Cambridge. After taking his BA in mathematics in 1783 he stayed in Cambridge to prepare for the Church; however, during this period he entered a Latin essay competition whose subject required him to learn about African slavery, and in this he found his life's work. An English translation of his essay was published as An Essay of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African (1786). Clarkson's subsequent career was one of indefatigable evidence-gathering, pamphleteering and campaigning, playing a major role in the recruitment of William Wilberforce MP to the cause. He worked closely with the Society of Friends, renouncing his deacon's orders in 1795, though he never formally became a Quaker. After the abolition of slavery in UK territories he turned his attention to slavery in the United States and was still campaigning when he died, aged 86, in 1846.

At Wellcome Collection:

Correspondence of Thomas Clarkson also occurs in MS.7151 (a miscellany of material connected with slavery) and the Hodgkin family papers, PP/HO.

Previously part of the Wellcome Library's Autograph Letters Sequence.