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Thomas Clarkson: a moving story for the Bicentenary |
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Thomas Clarkson: a moving story for the Bicentenary |
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Until this year — the Bicentenary of the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade — I wonder how many people were aware of the unassuming monument on a roadside verge in Hertfordshire which marks the extraordinary and almost biblical moment of vision which sparked off the abolition campaign. Situated by the northbound side of the Cambridge Road at Wadesmill, near Ware, is an inconspicuous stone obelisk which has been there for all to see for the past 130 years. Not much bigger than something you might find in a garden centre, it would hardly have registered in the peripheral vision of the millions of motorists and other road users who would have passed by over the many decades since its installation on 9 October 1879. As Robert Nurden commented in a feature in The Independent newspaper earlier this year: 'Blink and you’ll miss it. The tiny obelisk on the road out of the Hertfordshire village of Wadesmill hardly presents itself to the world, yet it is one of the most important monuments in British History. It marks the spot where the slavery abolitionist Thomas Clarkson had an epiphany: on that day in June 1785, on a journey from Cambridge to London, he committed his life to ending the transatlantic slave trade. 'That marker serves as an appropriate symbol for the hidden history of the slave trade. The exchange in Africa of British goods for 3.25 million people (the international figure is nearer to 20 million Africans) to work the plantations of the West Indies and America is the single most important contributory factor in the country’s accumulation of wealth in the 19th century. In one sense the history is hidden; in another, it is clear for all to see.' (Britain and the slave trade: the road to freedom by Robert Nurden, The Independent, March 25, 2007.) When you consider the colossal achievement of Thomas Clarkson in helping to bring all of this to an end, you do begin to wonder what kind of memorial it would take to do justice to him(1). It seems only right and proper that the monument dedicated to his life and work should be, well, monumental. Or if not monumental, at least it should be difficult to miss in broad daylight.
To be fair, it used to be — set as it was upon a sizeable base, as archive pictures show. And at the time of its unveiling this was a mere country road, travelled by horse-drawn carriages and pedestrians. You would hardly have missed it in its position just back from the footpath. However, it had to be moved further back from the road when the road was widened in 1972, and about nine yards further up the hill from its original location. Unfortunately, the original base mysteriously disappeared while it was in storage awaiting relocation and was never recovered — which meant that only the obelisk and plinth were put back by the roadside. The good news is that work was completed in November 2007 on a £56,000 project(2) to restore and upgrade the heritage profile of the monument — and to re-site it closer to the exact spot where 25-year- old Thomas Clarkson had his historic ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. Numerous articles have referred to that now legendary event during this Bicentennial year, but it is worth revisiting it again, not least to illustrate why the monument is considered so important. The account given in Clarkson’s own journal is that he had been invited to the Senate House at Cambridge University to read out his essay in Latin, Anne liceat invitos in servitutum dare? (Is it lawful to make slaves of others against their will?), for which he had been awarded first prize in a competition. He was riding back to London afterwards, unable to get the subject of slavery and its attendant horrors out of his head. Upon reaching Wadesmill, which is about 20 miles north of the capital, he dismounted, rested by the roadside and reflected on his life. In his own words: 'I … sat down disconsolately on the turf by the roadside and held my horse … if the contents of the essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities through to the end'. It was then that he had an unequivocal realisation that he was to be that person, as he experienced what he described as ‘a direct revelation from God ordering me to devote my life to abolishing the trade’. The version given on the plinth of the monument is slightly more prosaic. It reads simply: ‘On this spot where stands this monument in the month of June 1785 Thomas Clarkson resolved to devote his life to bringing about the abolition of the slave trade.’ This defining moment was to be the beginning of more than 60 years of unflagging commitment to the abolitionist cause. Clarkson met and worked with other like-minded campaigners, many of whom were Quakers, and, together with Granville Sharp, he was instrumental in setting up the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. It was this committee that helped to persuade William Wilberforce to champion the abolitionist cause in Parliament — a pivotal role to which Wilberforce was to remain committed without respite until the Abolition Act was passed in 1807. Thomas Clarkson’s efforts, meantime, focused on the ‘grassroots’ aspects of the campaign, raising petitions, writing letters, trekking all over the country on horseback — some 35,000 miles in all — sometimes risking his life to gather evidence such as handcuffs, shackles and branding tools, and first-hand accounts of the trade from eyewitnesses, including hardened seamen who had worked on slave trading vessels. This in turn provided William Wilberforce with the ammunition that was needed to to help build the case against the trade and persuade his peers in Parliament of the rightness of the abolition campaign. Even after the Abolition Act of 1807 (which effectively ended the trade that supplied the forced labour for the West Indian plantations) Clarkson continued his campaigning, pushing for the complete abolition of the trade. He lived to see the Slavery Abolition Act passed by Parliament in 1833, which applied to the British Empire in its entirety. He retired to Ipswich, where he died on 26 September 1846. He is buried in St Mary’s Church in Playford, Suffolk. When you consider Thomas Clarkson’s necessarily itinerant life in pursuit of the evidence to fuel the campaign, the monument by the roadside at Wadesmill, an incidental stop on one of his many long journeys in the saddle, seems particularly apposite. It is perhaps as fitting in its own way as the magnificent 70-foot neo-Gothic spire erected in his memory in his home town of Wisbech in 1881 — two years after the one at Wadesmill. It reminds us that slavery was, after all, not a phenomenon peculiar to just one location — it had tendrils everywhere, even in the most innocuous and obscure little villages where one might stop to rest and admire the view. It could just as easily have been somewhere else altogether. It is of course easy to be cynical about ‘on this very spot…’ monuments and plaques, but in the case of the one at Wadesmill there is good reason to be confident that this was exactly where Clarkson had his epiphany in that summer of 1785. At the unveiling of the monument in 1879 the Dean of Ely recounted how as a young boy he had been taken by Thomas Clarkson (then an old man) and shown the exact spot. It was this anecdote that had originally prompted Arthur Giles-Puller of Youngsbury (a mansion and estate near Wadesmill) to commission the monument, at his own cost. The monument, which he helped to design, was designed and crafted by a Mr Peck of Hertford. Given that the local archives in Hertford show that Mr Giles-Puller’s predecessors had, like many wealthy families in the country, owned slave plantations in the West Indies, such a public gesture cold hardly have failed to advertise this fact to historians of the future, if not his own contemporaries. This does show how radically attitudes had changed in less than a lifetime, with families which had once benefited from the slave trade now keen to show that they unequivocally supported its abolition. The historic photocall for the unveiling of what we might justly call Thomas Clarkson’s ‘original’ monument was the subject of an extensive article in the Hertfordshire Mercury, dated 11 October 1879, which is preserved by Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies. Perched precariously on a structure that looks like a Health and Safety officer’s nightmare are notable members of the local community (including Arthur Giles-Puller) as well as the Dean of Ely. What is curious about this strange tableau is the presence of two almost invisible figures — hovering diffidently on the path in the left background — one of whom is a black man. Given the reason for the occasion, it is strange that he is not identified in the press article. There is simply a mention in the copy about estate workers from Youngsbury being present, which may have referred to the man and his similarly marginalised colleague. The monument itself has proved to be an ideal focal point for ‘Hidden Histories’3 projects in the local area, including the production of new learning materials by two local schools in the immediate area. The contractors, the Rhodes Partnership and Haymills Conservation, have done an admirable job in moving the monument and creating an appropriate ‘feature’ setting for it, complete with a recessed wall, seating and an interpretation board. An official re-dedication ceremony took place on 14 November.
While it may only be a few yards further down the hill from its previous location, it now stands appreciably taller on its new plinth, so it is rather grander than it was when it was first dedicated in 1879. And now, thanks to the diversion of through traffic onto the new Wadesmill bypass, traffic through the village is much less frequent and has been slowed by traffic calming, so there’s little excuse now for missing the monument as you drive by. Notes: 2 The monument project has been made possible thanks to various partners and supporters, including the Heritage Lottery Fund, Thundridge Parish Council, Hertfordshire County Council, the Thundridge and High Cross Society, Ware Museum, Thundridge Primary School and the Puller Memorial School. The benefits that the restoration will provide are also supported by English Heritage and East Herts District Council. 3 The ‘Hidden Histories’ programme is a series of projects being run by Hertfordshire Archives and Local Studies to raise awareness of the slave trade among young people and their families in Hertfordshire in this Bicentennial year. It has included a series of creative workshops, performances and other related projects in schools, libraries and community groups across the county. The sessions use historical sources to tell the ‘hidden histories’ of some of the Hertfordshire people involved in the trade and its abolition. The programme will also create a local heritage trail booklet highlighting sites in the built environment related to Hertfordshire’s links to this aspect of the county’s history. For more information on the Hidden Histories project, and other related events, visit www.hertsdirect.org/libsleisure/ heritage1/HALS/hidden/. John Camp is a press officer at Hertfordshire County Council. |
John Camp 7 December 2007
Thomas Clarkson
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