Thomas Clarkson, Slavery, and Hallin Fell, Ullswater

 

The Thomas Clarkson Anti-Slavery Memorial at Eusemere, Pooley Bridge

Slavery issues – Ullswater

Cumbria had its clear connections with slavery, particularly the coastal town of Whitehaven with its Caribbean connections, indicated through the references to rum (The Rum Story) and Cumberland Rum Butter as a delicacy now eaten at Christmas, though back in those times, eaten from a particular dish at celebrations such as births. However, one would not have expected it to be a hotbed of the Abolitionist, or Anti-Slavery Movement, but it was, or at least the old County of Westmorland was, particularly centred on the southern shores of Ullswater, and around the associated town of Penrith (just inside Cumberland).

The men who were the nucleus of this movement for change in the evil trade of African human cargo were, Thomas Clarkson, and Lord (Henry Peter) Brougham, supported by other local man, such as the Quaker Thomas Wilkinson, and other great men of influence. Below is an account of these men, with reference to those locations.

Thomas Clarkson (1760 - 1846)

Thomas Clarkson, by Carl Frederik Von Breda

Thomas Clarkson was born in Wisbech, Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire, on 28^th March 1760. The eldest son of Reverend John Clarkson. He attended Cambridge and obtained a B.A. Degree and became a deacon in the church, although never proceeded to priest’s orders. Whilst at University he had entered a competition, set by the university vice-chancellor, asking: ‘Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?’ After extensive research on the subject, including the reading of earlier works by abolitionists and interviews with those involved in the trade, he won the competition and had to read the essay to the Cambridge faculty. On a journey he had a revelation and later wrote:

‘As it is usual to read these essays publicly in the senate-house soon after the prize is adjudged, I was called to Cambridge for this purpose. I went and performed my office. On returning however to London, the subject of it almost wholly engrossed my thoughts. I became at times very seriously affected while upon the road. I stopped my horse occasionally, and dismounted and walked. I frequently tried to persuade myself in these intervals that the contents of my Essay could not be true. The more however I reflected upon them, or rather upon the authorities on which they were founded, the more I gave them credit. Coming in sight of Wades Mill in Hertfordshire, I sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end. Agitated in this manner I reached home. This was in the summer of 1785.’

He then translated the essay from Latin into English to gain a wider audience and it was published in 1786 under the title of: ‘An essay on the slavery and commerce of the human species, particularly the African.’ In 1786 he also met William Wilberforce, and both would come to be the two titans of the anti-slavery movement. Wilberforce entered the abolitionist cause shortly after Clarkson, but it was never a question of who could gain the most honour, but who could do the most good; both would work to enhance the effectiveness of the other, for a common and Godly cause.

From these beginnings of the anti-slavery campaign the ‘Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’ was commenced on 22^nd May 1787. Members included Granville Sharpe as the chairman, with a total of 17 members, including Clarkson and Josiah Wedgewood. (Sharpe (1735-1813) had been involved in the Jonathan Strong case where he had managed to free Strong from his master. In 1772, having gained a reputation as the champion of the oppressed African he championed the cause of James Somerset a slave about to be transported to Virginia. He not only freed him but set the law, namely, as soon as a person set foot on English soil he could not be held as a slave, he was a free man. This was the first major anti-slavery decision.)  In that year of 1787 William Wilberforce wrote in his diary that his great purpose in his life was to be the suppression of slavery. It would be Wilberforce who would press the matter in parliament, supplied with a body of evidence researched by Clarkson. Their friendship would last throughout the whole of their lives. He was so fervent in the gathering of his evidence and influence of other’s views, including trips to France and the French aristocracy, that his health suffered. Part of his inquiries had led to his life being threatened in Liverpool and the plantation owners threatened to sack any employee that gave him any information on the slave trade. It was virtually impossible to disprove the plantation owners account that the slaves were bought at fairs in Africa, until he heard of a sailor who had told of being present when slaves were torn from their homes. His details were unknown, so Clarkson visited the navy ships at Deptford, Woolwich, Chatham, and Sheerness without success. He then went to Portsmouth and visited all the ships there, again without success. From there he went to Plymouth, a distance of 200 miles. There he visited 40 ships on the first day, again without success. Disheartened he visited the remainder on a second day and on the 57th ship at that dock he finally identified the man who confirmed that the slaves were dragged from their homes, which he had witnessed on several occasions. He brought his witness back to London for the purpose of obtaining a deposition from him and to give a first-hand account.

 Thomas’s health began to fail, and he was obliged to retire from the cause in 1794. He had travelled in excess of 30,000 miles, many journeys being through the night, building up that body of work on slavery issues.

Eusemere, on the south shore of Ullswater.

It was now that Thomas Clarkson had Eusemere built in 1795. He and his wife visited and loved the area of Ullswater, Clarkson having struck a close friendship with Thomas Wilkinson during his work on the anti-slavery movement. The Clarkson’s had initially stayed with Wilkinson at The Grotto, Yanwath, near Penrith, who advised them on the purchase of the land on which to build the house. Wilkinson himself had suggested the land and oversaw the building work. It was reported in 13^th April 1954 edition of the Penrith Observer, that Thomas Wilkinson had left memoirs stating that Clarkson had renounced his orders to join the Society of Friends and had asked him to choose a site on the lake shore to build a house, so Eusemere was erected. Clarkson’s, ‘Portrait of Quakerism’, published in 1806 was begun under Wilkinson’s roof and was submitted to him for his critical oversight, prior to publication. Wilkinson was often looking at improving the lot of mankind and it was only after two years from the formation of Clarkson’s Society against the Slave Trade that Wilkinson himself wrote his poem, ‘An Appeal to England, on Behalf of the Abused Africans.’; his ulterior purpose had been to lend support and gravitas to Clarkson’s cause. Wilkinson had also witnessed the distress and virtual nakedness of the African on street corners of the capital city in the year of 1785. When Clarkson came north for his quest of evidence on the slave trade, Wilkinson had joined the circuit with him, and so their lifelong friendship had begun.

There were frequent and influential visitors to Eusemere, two of whom were William and Dorothy Wordsworth who would stop for prolonged periods. One such visit by them was in April 1802 and on their journey back to Grasmere they passed the shores of the lake, near Gowbarrow. The next day it was reported that the poem ‘Daffodils’ was written (this was probably Dorothy in her diary, as it is known William wrote the poem some considerable time afterwards, it being a poem of memory). Other visitors had been Sir Walter Scott, Thomas Penson De Quincey (the English essayist who for a time 1820 – 1825, lived at Rydal), Samuel Coleridge, Charles Lamb, and William Wilberforce. Most visitors would then go to mount the famous mountain of Helvellyn by the Striding Edge route. He and Wilberforce, would sojourn along the banks of Ullswater where both would discuss this great cause that would forever occupy both the lives.

Unfortunately, this association with Ullswater came to an end, beginning when Mrs. Clarkson took ill in the early summer of 1804 and she moved back to the south of England with her son, leaving Thomas as a lonely figure at Eusemere. Dorothy Wordsworth wrote of her concern at his loneliness. Thomas joined his wife in November of that year and only visited once more; the Wordsworth’s would visit the house which was then only in the oversight of a maid. The property was then tenanted to William Smith, MP., of Norwich, the grandfather of Florence Nightingale. The property was then bought by Lord Lowther who then owned it for 20 years. The Wordsworth’s themselves seriously considered living there, which may have meant that they would come to have been buried at Barton, not Grasmere.

Thomas Clarkson returned to the political scene in 1805, touring the country once more to gain evidence and promote the anti-slavery cause. It was during this period that William Pitt the Younger died on 23^rd January 1806. The ‘Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade’, which all had worked towards, was finally passed on 25^th March 1807. The key debate had been on 23^rd February and the vote was 283 votes for, and 16 against; it was one that far exceeded their expectations, and Wilberforce received a standing ovation. That work had been greatly enhanced by the drive and research of Clarkson. However, it would take until 1833 before slavery was finally abolished in its entirety.

One could not be a firm friend of William Wordsworth and admired by him, without the great poet making reference to such an individual in his poems. Of Clarkson he wrote a sonnet named:

Sonnet, To Thomas Clarkson, On the final passing of the Bill for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, March 1807.

‘Clarkson! it was an obstinate Hill to climb:

How toilsome, nay how dire it was, by Thee

Is known,—by none, perhaps, so feelingly;

But Thou, who, starting in thy fervent prime,

Didst first lead forth this pilgrimage sublime,

Hast heard the constant Voice its charge repeat,

Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat,

First roused thee.—O true yoke-fellow of Time

With unabating effort, see, the palm

Is won, and by all Nations shall be worn!

The bloody Writing is for ever torn,

And Thou henceforth wilt have a good Man's calm,

A great Man's happiness; thy zeal shall find

Repose at length, firm Friend of human kind!’

William Wordsworth

Indeed, Wordsworth made a number of references to the trade in slaves and for further reading on the subject:

a)      'To Toussaint L'Overture' (1807)

b)     The Prelude (1805 Text) Book X, lines 203-228 (1805, 1st published 1926)

c)      The Prelude (1850 Text) Book X, lines 237-265 (1850)

Canon Hardwick Drummond Rawnsley was the vicar at Crosthwaite Church, Keswick and had commenced the National Trust with Octavia Hill and Sir Robert Hunter. In his ‘Literary Associations of the English Lakes’ he wrote of Eusemere and Clarkson:

“We are anxious to visit Eusemere, the seat we know of that worthy Thomas Clarkson of whom Southey once said that, ‘his name would hold an honourable place in the history of England,’ who began the discussion concerning the slave trade in this country, and who by the indefatigable and prodigious exertions which he made, well-nigh ruined his health and his fortune. Of this father of the cause of freedom for the slave, no one who visits Pooley Bridge and looks across Ullswater to the white house on the eastern shore, but must think tenderly and gratefully – proudly too – that he found in the society of these hills a strength to stimulate and inspire him and his able wife with courage for the uphill task which he, ‘Duty’s intrepid liege-man,’ ‘starting in his fervent prime,’ first to ‘lead forth that enterprise sublime,’ dared for God and humanity.”

Following Clarkson’s departure from Eusemere due to his wife’s health, he had written back to Thomas Wilkinson in 1806 saying, ‘My heart is still in Westmorland, and I long to be among the mountains again. I do not mean on a visit, but to live and die there; though now I must strain every nerve for the Total Abolition, which if once accomplished, I shall think of returning to private life.’

Thomas Clarkson was the first president of the Anti-Slavery convention and the head office of Anti-Slavery International, in Broomgrove Road, London, is still known as Thomas Clarkson House.

He died at his home in Ipswich on 26^th September 1846 at the age of 86 years and never gave up the righteous cause of the emancipation of the oppressed of the human race. It was said of him that he was the man who excited Wilberforce to labour for the abolition of the slave trade.

On 21^st May 2017, the Thomas Clarkson Memorial was unveiled on the shores of Ullswater, below Eusemere, with members of the Clarkson family present, along with the local artist, Jimmy Reynolds.. It was based on the 1787 image by Josiah Wedgewood, which was originally on a medallion of the day, designed to promote the Abolition movement. It was of an African in chains on one knee, looking up with his hands clasped in prayer, with he words, ‘Am I not a man and a brother?’ surrounding the image.

Thomas Wilkinson 1751 - 1836

Thomas Wilkinson, of The Grotto, Yanwath, was born on 29^th April 1751 and he was a Quaker, the son of Christopher Wilkinson. He was at heart an agriculturist but spent his life in the emancipation of slaves; he was also a poet and became known as ‘The Bard of Westmorland.’

He was friends all his life with Charles Lloyd, the banking poet, Burke, William Wilberforce, but above all, and as stated earlier, with Thomas Clarkson, who he worked tirelessly with to end slavery.

Thomas Wilkinson, an author of ‘A Tour of British Mountains’ and other miscellaneous works, died on 13^th June 1836 and was buried at Tirril Quaker graveyard. More than 30 years previously he had been present when the artist Charles Gough had been buried at the same churchyard. Gough had been a Quaker but had joined the militia, and so was disowned by the society. When he was found dead by a local Shepherd on Helvellyn, with his faithful dog Foxie by the side of his emaciated corpse, it was Thomas Clarkson who had persuaded the Tirril Quakers, most likely the Wilkinson’s, to allow his skeletal remains to be buried there, and this was acceded. It had been the Wilkinson family who had given of the land to the Quaker’s for a meeting house to be built there in 1733; it was rebuilt in Thomas Wilkinson’s time. For further reading on Charles Gough, see:

https://scafellhike.blogspot.com/2019/09/charles-gough-faithful-dog-and.html

Wilkinson was himself a poet, but largely forgotten. However, his prose, admitted by Dorothy Wordsworth, was the basis of William’s great work, ‘The Solitary Reaper’.

Wordsworth wrote a poem called ‘To the spade of a Friend’. This ‘friend’ was Wilkinson, who is mentioned in the first line. He had described Wilkinson as, ‘He was a Quaker, of elegant habits, rustic simplicity, and with tastes too pure to be refined.’

Wilkinson wrote a poem called ‘Emont (Eamont) Vale’, and in it said:

‘Here Wilberforce from listening senates came,

His bosom glowing with a holy flame.

He viewed a quarter of this goodly earth,

Cradled in chains the moment of their birth;

From bad to worse he saw a people hurl’d,

The tortured slaves of an unfeeling world.

With views like these he entertained the plan,

To raise th’ unequal scale of suffering man.

Conviction heard his voice, and Britain rose,

A host of partners in the righteous cause.

Go, Wilberforce! Assist the labouring state,

Where British wisdom leads the high debate!

Perform thy part; - then far, in the mountains rude,

Come to the pure delights of solitude!

 

 Here indefatigable Clarkson stay’d,

His weary foot, and slept in Eusemere’s shade.

For wrong’d humanity long toils he bore,

Sought slumbering Truth around from shore to shore;

Brought such a scene of wickedness to light,

Astonish’d England shuddered at the sight.

Though here a while he found a place of rest,

Sad Afic’s woes still lingered in his breast.

Yet as he took his solitary rounds,

The mountain breezes soothed his inward wounds.’

In support of both Wilberforce and Clarkson, in 1787 he had issued, ‘An appeal to England on behalf of the Abused Africans.’ He was known to have gone into Penrith market with a large plan of a slave ship. He would lay this out and explain to those who gathered around, the horrible way by which the enslaved Africans would be transported from West Africa to the West Indian plantations.

 

William Wilberforce (1759 - 1833)

Wilberforce used to rent Rayrigg, at Windermere, to replenish the soul and would invite others, including William Pitt to stay with him. He is first recorded as staying with Lord Muncaster at Muncaster House in the summer of 1784 and taking up a residence near Rayrigg. He was friends with William Cookson, the uncle of William Wordsworth and would holiday in the lakes and come to love the area. He was known to still be holidaying in the lake district as late as 1818, with his family and large entourage of servants and horses.

 

Henry Peter Brougham (1778 - 1868)

Henry Brougham as a young man.

Henry Peter Brougham came from an ancient Westmorland family of Brougham Hall, near Penrith. He was born in Edinburgh in September 1778 and was educated there. He studied law and natural sciences. Despite having several scientific papers published he chose law as his profession. He was one of the founding fathers of The Edinburgh Review in 1802. He was to move to London through his involvement in certain important legal cases, and while at London became a fervent supporter of the Abolition of Slavery. He entered parliament in 1810 and had various periods there as a Member for Camelford (1810 – 1812), Winchelsea (1815 – Feb. 1830), and Knaresborough (Feb. 1830 – Aug. 1830), before moving to The House of Lords in November 1830. He was Lord High Chancellor from November 1830 to July 1834.

He became known as a champion of the oppressed and downtrodden, he was also the first president of ‘The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge’, and was a passionate believer and mover of the cause of education of the masses, including adult education, also of the large scale reform of capital sentences. He became known chiefly for his work on the cause of the complete abolition of slavery around the world.

In June of 1810 he carried through the House of Commons an address to the King, both direct and diplomatic, for the suppression of the slave trade. It was a marker for the country of his skills as an orator and bode well for him being marked for greatness. He was successful in 1811 with his bill for the punishment of individuals in the participation of the slave trade, which passed without opposition (The Slave Trade Felony Act). This carried sentences of either 5 years imprisonment or 14 years transportation, and he was supported in this by others, including William Wilberforce. This bill brought about a huge reduction in the traffic of slaves but did not eliminate it altogether. In 1823 The Anti-Slavery Society was formed; three of its members were Wilberforce, Clarkson and Brougham.

In 1824 Henry Brougham carried a further Act through parliament which now made the sentence a capital one; no-one now dared to breach this law, at pain of death.

In 1831 there was a large-scale revolt in Jamaica that resulted in a large loss of life. This caused two inquiries by parliament. In 1832 The Reform Act swept away ‘rotten borough seats’ in parliament, where plantation owners had used these to adversely influence the decisions of the government on slavery matters. This then allowed the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Unfortunately, Wilberforce died just after its 3^rd reading in July, so never saw it receive Royal Ascent in the August. Although slavery had now ended, older former slaves were then apprenticed to plantation owners, so were not fully released until either 1838 or 1840, but that evil trade had then ended, plantation owners being paid compensation for their loss.

It was in the year of 1864 that Lord Brougham turned 86 years of age and a long time friend and fellow politician of Joseph Wilkinson of Bonscale, that Wilkinson erected a 12 foot high memorial cairn on nearby Hallin Fell, which is on the eastern shore of Ullswater and just over 3 miles down from Eusemere. The cairn was erected to celebrate Lord Brougham’s life-long work of service to the disaffected and the poor, irrespective of race or creed. Most notable of all was his early work over many years in the total abolition of slavery.

The Hallin Fell Obelisk, or Brougham Pillar

For further reading on Lord Brougham and his work: 
https://scafellhike.blogspot.com/2019/12/the-hallin-fell-obelisk.html

He died in Cannes on 7^th May 1868 and is buried there. There is a statue to him in that town, for it was he who discovered it as a place of recuperation and that alone turned it from a mere small fishing village to become the resort of the rich and famous that it is now. He had bought land and constructed a villa there, which attracted other notable people of wealth and establishment.

 

Further Slavery Related Poems:

Refer to: https://brycchancarey.com/slavery/poetry.htm

Another work was ‘Ullsmere’ by John Charles Bristow, a singular work published in 1835 and Clarkson is mentioned in Part II, on page 88, verse XVIII:

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ma9gAAAAcAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=John+Charles+Bristou+Ullsmere