2-981-881 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Clarkson Memorial, Wisbech, 1876. 'The monument, designed by Sir Gilbert Scott... is to preserve the local memory of Thomas Clarkson, the benevolent and persevering opponent of the slave trade....While at Cambridge he wrote the Latin prize essay for 1785, on the question of the lawfulness of holding slaves. The facts and principles this brought before his mind had such an influence upon him as to make him devote his life to the cause of slave-trade abolition. He secured the aid of many able and earnest men - amongst others Wilberforce and Granville Sharp...On March 25, 1807, after long and obstinate resistance from interested persons, the bill for the total abolition of the slave trade by the British nation was passed...It took twenty or thirty years more to effect the total abolition of slavery and the slave trade in the British colonies, but this was accomplished by the Act of 1833...'. From "Illustrated London News", 1876.