DOCSLIB.ORG

A Suicide Crisis in Britain's Age of Reform, 1815-1830

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
A Suicide Crisis in Britain's Age of Reform, 1815-1830 A Suicide Crisis in Britain’s Age of Reform, 1815-1830 an episode in the development of Victorian middle-class morality Joseph Molto Supervisor: Joost Augusteijn Student Number: 1742078 Address: 42 Maine Ave, York, YO31 0RZ, UNITED KINGDOM 1 Acknowledgements I would like to extend my appreciation to my supervisor Dr. Joost Augusteijn, Dr. Maartje Janse and Dr. Eric Storm, for their assistance and patient encouragement which helped me pick up where I had left off after a long break in research while I settled down in a new country. I also owe a debt of gratitude to Esther Buizer, the programme coordinator, whose fortuitous walk through the Plantsoen Park led to an encouraging chat that convinced me to carry on despite the challenges that had intervened. Leiden has offered me the chance to get to know many other up and coming academics who have helped me piece together aspects of the story I was less well acquainted with. In particular I would like to thank Myrte Wouterse and Lexi Cleveland as well as my housemates, all fellow students; Chiel Claassen, George Staicu, Akiko Hakuno, Timothy Burke and Grace van der Zee – I am indebted to them for providing me accommodation for my return visits and helping me to improve my Dutch – grote dank. Finally I would like to thank my sister Cecilia Molto and uncle Mark Sherlock for financial support, as well as my brother, Dr. Daniel Molto, at the University of Sussex, for looking over my script and making many useful suggestions –as ever, all mistakes remain my own. Written during the Covid Lockdown. Joseph Molto City of York, 23rd of June, 2020 Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a Research MA dissertation in History (Political Culture and National Identities) at Leiden University Table of Figures 1 – Ngram: frequency of terms 'melancholy suicide' & 'unfortunate suicide', 1800-2000 ......................... 19 2 - Ngram: frequency of terms 'criminal suicide' & ‘shocking suicide’, 1800-1900 .................................. 22 3 – Chart: use of terms 'suicide' & 'felo-de-se' in selected newspapers, 1815-1833 ................................... 33 4 – Ngram: frequency of term ‘suicide’, 1800-1900................................................................................... 35 5 – Ngram: frequency of term ‘cases of suicide’, 1800-1900 ..................................................................... 43 6 - Ngram: frequency of term 'cut throat', 1815-1835................................................................................. 45 7 – Image: etching of Lord Castlereagh's suicide, 1822 ............................................................................. 49 8 – Image: the English Dance of Death, 1816 ............................................................................................ 68 9 – Ngram: frequency of terms ‘female suicide’ & ‘male suicide’, 1800-1900 ......................................... 70 10 - Ngram: frequency of term 'felo-de-se', 1800-1900 .............................................................................. 97 1 2 Contents Introduction ................................................................................................................................................. 3 Historiography .......................................................................................................................................... 4 Suicide: thèse sociologique versus thèse psychiatrique ........................................................................ 4 Studies of 18th and 19th Century Suicide ............................................................................................... 6 The History of Emotions and Morals .................................................................................................... 9 Thesis ...................................................................................................................................................... 11 Werther-mania: suicide before 1815 ....................................................................................................... 12 Romanticism and Honour Culture .......................................................................................................... 14 The Language of Suicide ........................................................................................................................ 18 The Science of Suicide ............................................................................................................................ 24 A ‘suicide crisis’, 1815-1830 ..................................................................................................................... 31 The Statistics of Suicide .......................................................................................................................... 31 Suicide Clusters ...................................................................................................................................... 41 Art and Imitation ..................................................................................................................................... 48 Suicide á la Castlereagh .......................................................................................................................... 52 Élite Hypocrisy and the new Professional Class ..................................................................................... 61 Suicide Condemned - again .................................................................................................................... 66 Religion: suicide still a sin? ...................................................................................................................... 72 A Suicidal Clergy .................................................................................................................................... 73 The Scourge of Secularism ..................................................................................................................... 79 A new Via Media .................................................................................................................................... 86 Reform and Retrenchment ...................................................................................................................... 93 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................... 101 Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................. 104 2 3 Introduction On the twelfth of August 1822, Robert Stewart Lord Castlereagh, the British Foreign Secretary, slit his throat with a razor while at his home in what is now south London. The death of the notoriously reactionary Castlereagh has come to represent the death of the ancien regime; the world of aristocratic honour and oppression which he had propped up during the long years of war against Napoleonic France and which he represented to the forces of radicalism at home. Yet, there is another story of Castlereagh’s death, one in which the supposed inhumanity of his politics is displaced by his own humanity. Castlereagh’s death did not mark the end of an era so much as it encapsulated a distinct period of social anxiety in which the public mores of a new age were forged. For Castlereagh was not alone among his peers in putting period to his existence; many prominent members of society committed suicide between the end of the Napoleonic Wars and the fall of the war-time Tory government of which Castlereagh was a member, a time period roughly coterminous with the ‘Regency Period’. During this period, a number of prominent members of Parliament, such as Samuel Whitbread, Samuel Romilly and Lord Graves, killed themselves in the same violent manner as Castlereagh, as did a significant number of clergymen, demobbed soldiers, numerous gentlemen and a series of suspected imitators further down the social scale. This apparent clustering of prominent and violent suicides sparked a period of relatively intense coverage and debate over the issue of suicide in the country’s burgeoning journals and newspapers. All this attention contributed directly to at least one significant reform of the law in 1823; a reform of the law governing the burial of suicides, which was one of the first acts in the most significant period of English legal reform; the Age of Reform.1 The question is, then, what if anything linked the suicides of Castlereagh, Romilly et al in the Regency Period and what impact did these suicides have on English society? 1 Robert Peel entered cabinet in 1822, sponsored his first major reform, the Gaols Act, in 1823, which laid the groundwork for the first significant attempt to consolidate British laws with the eponymous ‘Peel’s Acts’ of 1827 just as the debates over Catholic Emancipation, the Abolition of Slavery, Parliamentary Reform, the Poor Law and child labour in factories were reaching their height. 3 4 Historiography “A CONSCIENTIOUS JURYMAN! - Some time ago, a man threw himself into a canal in Lincolnshire, and was drowned. An inquest was immediately summoned, and the Jury, with one exception only, were unanimous in their verdict of Felo-de-se. This “finding” will not suit him at all, and so he boldly expostulated with the Coroner, “How con ye foind that a mon fell i’th’ Sea, when he was found i’th’ Conol?””2 Suicide: thèse sociologique versus thèse psychiatrique Although
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Bentham's Frigidarium: Utilitarianism and Food Preservation
    UCL Bentham Project Journal of Bentham Studies, vol. 1 (1997) Bentham’s Frigidarium: Utilitarianism and Food Preservation DAVID L. COHEN Jeremy Bentham’s Frigidarium manuscripts form a little known excursion by Bentham into the science of food preservation. These little discussed manuscripts are mentioned by Bentham in a letter to his brother Samuel and in two letters to Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869), a precocious physician who received scientific acclaim by the age of 21 and who in October 1800 spent six weeks with Jeremy Bentham discussing Bentham’s scheme for the utilization of the sewage of big metropolises and his Frigidarium (related projects). 1 The manuscripts are rarely mentioned in the literature on Bentham.2 Roget himself, referred to them only three times, the last reference written just before Roget began his stay with Bentham.3 Samuel Romilly (1757-1818), Roget’s uncle, seems to have been aware of Bentham’s Frigidarium and rather proud that Bentham saw fit to consult his nephew about it.4 The plans were discussed during their six week acquaintance, (although there is no record of what they discussed) Bentham wrote Roget that he felt ‘much the want of a confidential friend, whose sympathetic zeal might animate my languor’. 5 After this episode, however, the manuscripts are never mentioned again. This essay will do three things. First it will provide some possible reasons why Bentham was interested in refrigeration and why he abruptly ceased to show interest. Second, in order to answer the first question the history of refrigeration will be outlined and the place of Bentham’s device in it will be described.
    [Show full text]
  • Resolutions Jury Trial and Its Critics in the 7 Eighteenth Century
    Partm Resolutions Jury Trial and Its Critics in the 7 Eighteenth Century Between Bushel's Case and the late eighteenth century the English criminal jury trial underwent little significant change. The first great watershed in the history of trial practice was the development in Tudor times of a formal prosecution; the second was the increasing recourse to counsel and the development of a true law of evidence in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Perhaps the modern trial took shape only in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the point at which our present story ends. But if one searches in vain for dramatic change in trial procedure, the eighteenth century does reveal develop­ ments both in the role of the criminal trial and the way in which contemporaries thought about the jury. These two developments were related, and it is mainly the history of that relationship that Part III addresses. There are many strands to the history of jury trial, 1689-1800, too many certainly to outline here. But the main ones can be set forth briefly. The eighteenth century saw a consolidation and rationalization of the age-old practices that characterized the administration of the criminal law generally and the role of the trial jury in particular. Building on develop­ ments of the preceding century, authorities brought jury practices further under control even as they conceded the principle of the inviolability of the general verdict. Although jury trial itself changed little, the context of the trial altered significantly as authorities elaborated on the practical approach to penology that had emerged almost accidentally in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
    [Show full text]
  • James Perry and the Morning Chronicle 179O—I821
    I JAMES PERRY AND THE MORNING CHRONICLE- 179O—I821 By l yon Asquith Thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the University of London 1973 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract 3 Preface 5 1. 1790-1794 6 2. 1795-1 805 75 3. 1806-1812 (i) ThB Ministry of the Talents 184 (ii) Reform, Radicalism and the War 1808-12 210 (iii) The Whigs arid the Morning Chronicle 269 4. Perry's Advertising Policy 314 Appendix A: Costs of Production 363 Appendix B: Advertising Profits 365 Appendix C: Government Advertisements 367 5. 1813-1821 368 Conclusion 459 Bibliography 467 3 A BSTRACT This thesis is a study of the career of James Perry, editor and proprietor of the Morning Chronicle, from 1790-1821. Based on an examination of the correspondence of whig and radical polit- icians, and of the files of the morning Chronicle, it illustrates the impact which Perry made on the world of politics and journalism. The main questions discussed are how Perry responded, as a Foxite journalist, to the chief political issues of the day; the extent to which the whigs attempted to influence his editorial policy and the degree to which he reconciled his independence with obedience to their wishes4 the difficulties he encountered as the spokesman of an often divided party; his considerable involvement, which was remarkable for a journalist, in party activity and in the social life of whig politicians; and his success as a newspaper proprietor concerned not only with political propaganda, but with conducting a paper which was distinguished for the quality of its miscellaneous features and for its profitability as a business enterprise.
    [Show full text]
  • Memoirs of the Life of Sir Samuel Romilly, Written by Himself, Ed. By
    This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com 4c 102,1 MEMOIRS THE LIFE OF SIR SAMUEL ROMILLY, WRITTEN BY HIMSELF; WITH A SELECTION FROM HIS CORRESPONDENCE. EDITED BY HIS SONS. IN THREE VOLUMES. VOL. III. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. MDCCCXL. 1031. London : Printed by A. Spottiswoode, New- Street- Square. CONTENTS THE THIRD VOLUME. DIARY OF THE PARLIAMENTARY LIFE OF SIR SAMUEL ROMILL Y — {continued). 1812. Slave trade ; Registry of slaves Bristol election; candidates; Mr. Protheroe. — Resolution of the Independent Club, and letter respecting it Mr. Protheroe; Hunt Address to the electors. — Mr. Rider's motion, police of the metro polis ; increase of crime. — Abuses in Ecclesiastical Courts ; Sir Wm. Scott. — Bristol election ; letter to Mr. Edge. — Reversion Bill. — Bill to repeal 39 Eliz. — Transportation to New South Wales. — The Regent's determination to re tain the ministers; his letter to the Duke of York. — Colonel M'Mahon's sinecure. — Delays in the Court of Chancery ; Michael Angelo Taylor. — Master in Chancery not fit mem ber of a committee to inquire into the delays of the court. — Expulsion of Walsh from the House of Commons. — Local Poor Bills; Stroud. — Military punishments; Brougham. — Bill to repeal 39 Eliz. ; Lord Ellenborough. — Abuses of charitable trusts ; Mr. Lockhart. — Visit to Bristol, reception, Speech second address to the electors. — Military punishments. — Cobbett's attack. — Committee on the delays in the Court of Chancery. — Disqualifying laws against Catholics.
    [Show full text]
  • Memoirs of Henry Hunt Esq. — Volume 3
    Memoirs of Henry Hunt Esq. — Volume 3 By Henry Hunt Memoirs Of Henry Hunt, Esq. "Whoever thinks a faultless piece to see, Thinks what ne'er was, nor is, nor e'er shall be. In every work regard the Writer's end, Since none can compass more than they intend; And if the means be just, the conduct true, Applause, in spite of trivial faults, is due." POPE. MEMOIRS OF HENRY HUNT. This wanton outrage was perpetrated in the presence of those, who will, perhaps, blush when they read this. I do not say that this was done by the Magistrate; but it was done by the gang that surrounded him, and I know the villain who did it. The poor thing lay senseless for some time; no one of the numerous spectators daring to go to her assistance. When she came to her senses, she was covered from head to foot with blood, that had flowed from the wound, which was on the scalp, and was four inches in length. In this state she came running to me, and made her way up to the front of the procession:—we halted, horror-struck at her appearance. The blood was streaming down her snowy bosom, and her white gown was nearly covered with the crimson gore; her cap and bonnet and clothes had been torn to rags; her fine black hair reached her waist; and, in this state, she indignantly recounted her wrongs. O God, what I felt! There were from four to five thousand brave Bristolians present, who heard this tale, and with one accord they burst forth in exclamations of revenge; every man of them was worked up to such a pitch of excitement by the cruelty of the atrocious act, that they would have instantly sacrificed their lives, to have executed summary justice upon the cowardly authors of it.
    [Show full text]
  • Select Biographical Sketches from the Notebooks of a Law Reporter
    This is a reproduction of a library book that was digitized by Google as part of an ongoing effort to preserve the information in books and make it universally accessible. https://books.google.com 600022315 V I Sir Thomas Lawrence, Pinx. S. Ayllng, Photo. anwAaii — Lois a&StMi LORD CHIEF JUSTICE, 1801. 1 1 J ► -.Li'1-'*- '" ^OOME STREET, 1867. J2./0. e SELECT BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES FROM THE Note- Books of a Law Reporter. WILLIAM HEATH BENNET, Esq., OF LINCOLN'S INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. LONDON: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE and SONS, BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL. NEW YORK: 416, BROOME STREET. 1867. J2./0. e //i?, LONDON : PRINTED BY TIIOMAS SCOTT, WARWICK CCURT, HOLBOBN. 7° THE EIGHT HONORABLE WILLIAM HENRY, BARON LEIGH, STONELEIGH, LORD LIEUTENANT OF THE COUNTY OF WARWICK; CUSTOS BOTULORUMj TRUSTEE OF BUSBY SCHOOL, 4c. Sc. &c. Qgfcfff gfUtthtt WITH HIS LORDSHIP'S PERMISSION, F ESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, THE AUTHOR. PREFACE. The following Sketches — for they pretend to little more than the word imports — were, at the time they were penned, thrown off without any intention of seeking for literary fame as the result of their publication. I entreat my readers to bear this in remem brance. The earlier ones appeared in a legal weekly periodical at the end of last year, and were received with some favour by many of its readers. I was subsequently advised to collect them in a separate form, to re-cast, and to enlarge them, as better adapted for more general circulation and perusal. This I have now done, and have added perhaps the more attractive feature to the Essays — Photographic Portraits of the eminent men upon whose lives and talents I have thus ventured to comment.
    [Show full text]
  • The Criminal Code of the Northwest Territory
    Maurer School of Law: Indiana University Digital Repository @ Maurer Law David Banta (1889-1896) Law School Deans 1892 The Criminal Code of the Northwest Territory David Demaree Banta Follow this and additional works at: https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/banta Part of the Legal History Commons Recommended Citation Banta, David Demaree, "The Criminal Code of the Northwest Territory" (1892). David Banta (1889-1896). 11. https://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/banta/11 This Writing by Dean David Banta is brought to you for free and open access by the Law School Deans at Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in David Banta (1889-1896) by an authorized administrator of Digital Repository @ Maurer Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE CRIMINAL CODE OF THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY By the Late Judge DAVIDD. BANTA,Sometime Dean of the Indiana University Law School [Judge Banta was born in Johnson county, May 23, 1833. He was educated at Franklin College and Indiana University, graduating from the latter insti- tution with the class of 18;s. Two years later he graduated from the Law School of Indiana University. In 1888 Hanover College conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. He was in public service continuously from 1857 to his death in 1896, during the last six years of his life being Dean of the School of Law of Indiana University. He was the author of a History of Jolznso,i Cozrn fy, History of the Presbyterian Church of Franklin, Making a Neighborhood, and many shorter papers and essays.
    [Show full text]
  • Whatmore 2017 History Saving
    1 Saving Republics by Moving Republicans: Britain, Ireland and ‘New Geneva’ During the Age of Revolutions RICHARD WHATMORE University of St Andrews Abstract In 1783 the British and Irish governments launched an experiment by funding the establishment of a settlement that was expected to become a new city. It was called ‘New Geneva’ and situated on the site of a village called Passage, just outside the port of Waterford in Ireland. New Geneva was to be peopled by rebels, Genevans who had fled or were ready to flee in the aftermath of the failed revolution of 1782. This article explains that for the main Genevan actors in the Waterford experiment, François d’Ivernois (Sir Francis d’Ivernois from 1796) and his friend Jacques-Antoine Du Roveray, the exodus from Geneva was part of a greater battle to save Europe’s small states, and especially the republics of Europe. The article further reveals that the major supporters of New Geneva were seeking to address Britain’s problems both domestically and as an empire. Charles Stanhope, then Lord Mahon (from 1786 3rd earl of Stanhope), and William Petty, then 2nd earl of Shelburne (from 1784 1st marquess of Lansdowne), each hoped that the Genevans would introduce cultures capable of palliating the excessive corruption or ‘mercantile system’ they saw in Britain’s commercial society. The history of New Geneva underscored the perilous state of Europe’s republics before 1789, the widespread extent of the view that Britain and Ireland were in crisis, and that extreme and cosmopolitan reform projects were in the air before the French Revolution.
    [Show full text]
  • William Wilberforce
    William Wilberforce (1759-1833)1 A biographical essay by Leslie Stephen, edited by Kevin Belmonte William Wilberforce was born in the High Street, Hull, [England] on 24 August 1759, was the only son of Robert Wilberforce by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Bird of Barton, Oxfordshire. Of three other children [Elizabeth, Sarah and Ann—Sarah] alone reached maturity. The family had long been settled in Yorkshire, and took their name from the township of Wilberfoss, eight miles east of York. A William Wilberforce (the first who adopted that spelling) was engaged in the Baltic trade and was twice mayor of Hull; he also inherited a landed estate from his mother (born Davyes). Robert, the younger of this William's two sons, was partner in the house at Hull. Robert's son, William, a very delicate child, was sent at the age of seven to the Hull grammar school. Isaac Milner, who became usher at the school in 1768, reports that Wilberforce used to be put on a table to read aloud as an example to other boys. In 1768 his father died, and he was afterwards sent to his uncle William, who had a house at Wimbledon. Thence he attended a school at Putney which ‘taught everything and nothing.’ His mother brought him back to Hull upon hearing that his aunt [Hannah], a sister of [merchant and philanthropist] John Thornton, was [converting] him to Methodism, and placed him under the Rev. K[ingsman] Baskett, master of Pocklington grammar school. He forgot his Methodism, became generally popular, and was specially admired for his singing.
    [Show full text]
  • European Review of Private Law Revue Européenne De Droit Privé
    european review of private law european review of private law VOLUME 15 NO. 4–2007 revue europe´enne de droit prive´ Articles/Articles/Aufsa¨tze europa¨ische zeitschrift fu¨rprivatrecht 483-513 HANNES RO¨SLER Hardship in German Codified Private Law – In Comparative Perspective to English, French and International Contract Law VOLUME 15 NO. 2007 515-531 MARCO B.M. LOOS The Influence of European Consumer Law on General Contract Law and the Need 4 for Spontaneous Harmonization EUROPEAN REVIEW OF PRIVATE LAW 533-553 ALDO BERLINGUER The Italian Road to Trusts 555-599 ANDREW P. BELL Abuse of a Relationship: Undue Influence in English Law and French Law Case notes/Annotations/Entscheidungsanmerkungen 601-616 SARA MARTI´N SALAMANCA Cour de Cassation - Ass. ple´n., arret No. 519 du 29 oct 2004 - Une cause contraire aux bonnes moeurs 617-628 PEDRO DEL OLMO Cour de Cassation, 1e`re civ. 3 fevrier 2004 - Un preˆta` usage` a dure´e inde´termine´e consenti pour un usage permanent, le preˆteur pouvait y mettre fin` a tout moment, et si oui sous quelle(s) condition(s)? 629-633 Index 2006 635 List of Contributors VOLUME 15 NO. 4 PP. 483-636 2007 european review of private law european review of private law revue europe´enne de droit prive´ revue europe´enne de droit prive´ europa¨ische zeitschrift fu¨rprivatrecht europa¨ische zeitschrift fu¨rprivatrecht Contact Subscription Information M. Schaub, e-mail: [email protected] Volume 15 (6 issues) will be published in 2007. Institutions subscription price EURO 506,– j USD 632,– j GBP 372,–(including postage and handling).
    [Show full text]
  • The Unreformed Parliament 1714-1832
    THE UNREFORMED PARLIAMENT 1714-1832 General 6806. Abbatista, Guido. "Parlamento, partiti e ideologie politiche nell'Inghilterra del settecento: temi della storiografia inglese da Namier a Plumb." Societa e Storia 9, no. 33 (Luglio-Settembre 1986): 619-42. ['Parliament, parties, and political ideologies in eighteenth-century England: themes in English historiography from Namier to Plumb'.] 6807. Adell, Rebecca. "The British metrological standardization debate, 1756-1824: the importance of parliamentary sources in its reassessment." Parliamentary History 22 (2003): 165-82. 6808. Allen, John. "Constitution of Parliament." Edinburgh Review 26 (Feb.-June 1816): 338-83. [Attributed in the Wellesley Index.] 6809. Allen, Mary Barbara. "The question of right: parliamentary sovereignty and the American colonies, 1736- 1774." Ph.D., University of Kentucky, 1981. 6810. Armitage, David. "Parliament and international law in the eighteenth century." In Parliaments, nations and identities in Britain and Ireland, 1660-1850, edited by Julian Hoppit: 169-86. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003. 6811. Bagehot, Walter. "The history of the unreformed Parliament and its lessons." National Review 10 (Jan.- April 1860): 215-55. 6812. ---. The history of the unreformed Parliament, and its lessons. An essay ... reprinted from the "National Review". London: Chapman & Hall, 1860. 43p. 6813. ---. "The history of the unreformed Parliament and its lessons." In Essays on parliamentary reform: 107- 82. London: Kegan Paul, 1860. 6814. ---. "The history of the unreformed Parliament and its lessons." In The collected works of Walter Bagehot, edited by Norman St. John-Stevas. Vol. 6: 263-305. London: The Economist, 1974. 6815. Beatson, Robert. A chronological register of both Houses of the British Parliament, from the Union in 1708, to the third Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, in 1807.
    [Show full text]
  • The Slave Trade Catalogue 1496
    THE SLAVE TRADE CATALOGUE 1496 MAGGS BROS. LTD. THE SLAVE TRADE 1690-1880 CATALOGUE 1496 MAGGS BROS. LTD. atalogue 1496 includes 76 items devoted to the slave trade and its abolition. The items are drawn from the United States and England, C France and Spain, Liberia and Ghana. In addition to books, there are broadsides, prints and manuscripts. The main names in the English abolition movement all feature: William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and Granville Sharp; as do Anthony Benezet, Ignatius Sancho, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Important figures in the establishment and government of the Sierra Leone colony are also represented. The revolutions in Haiti, France, and America all took place in the period covered, and their ramifications on free trade, for starters, underpin the publication of several items here. So too do the other major events of the era: obviously, the signing and implementation of the 1807 and 1833 Abolition Acts, but also the 1814 Treaty of Paris, which contained a clause for abolition that bound both France and Spain. There is a considerable group documenting some of the internal conflicts within the abolition movements in both England and France, as well as the resis- Covers from item 69, History of the Merry Brother Jonathan. tance from planters in the colonies whose interests were materially and imme- diately affected. It is difficult to over-estimate the scale of the slave trade and how integral it was to the vastly profitable sugar industry. In the early decades MAGGS BROS. LTD. of the nineteenth century, colonists and plantation owners became increas- 48 Bedford Square London WC1B 3DR ingly mindful to position themselves as anti-slavery but at every turn resisted emancipation.
    [Show full text]