Notes
Note for: William Wilberforce, UNKNOWN - Index
William Wilberforce (1759-1833) from Hull led the fight to abolish slaver
y. The Abolitionists won their first victory in 1772 when a British jud
ge Lord Mansfield ruled that no one could be a slave in Britain. In 18
07 a Bill was passed in the British parliament prohibiting British ships f
rom taking slaves to British colonies and in 1833 a few weeks after Wilber
force's death, the government passed an Act emancipating slaves througho
ut the British Empire. By the 1820s most European countries followed sui
t. Britain blockaded the West African coast - the centre of the blocka
de was Sierra Leone called the Slave Coast.
William Wilberforce went to school at Bewdley, Worcestershire when John Ca
wood was Evangelical vicar there.
Wilberforce's aunt was John Thornton's half-sister; she and her husband h
ad a house at St. James and a villa in Wimbledon.
The Thorntons came from Hull and were in the Baltic trade with the Wilberf
orces. The Company of Baltic Merchants traded in furs and timber; Hull h
ad nothing to do with slavery. In 1810 the Baltic Merchants had their pre
mises at the Antwerp Coffee Club in Threadneedle Street (where the Ba
nk of England was situated) near Lombard Street where Lloyds insurance h
ad been move by Edward Lloyd from Tower Street. He was buried at St. Mar
y, Woolnoth.
Robert Thornton, father of Samuel, Henry and John bought an estate sou
th of Clapham Common. Samuel Thornton (1760-1815) was born at Clapham, h
is brother Henry was a banker and MP for Southwark who became Treasur
er of the Church Missionary Society, another brother, John, bought Batters
ea Rise House where Wilberforce settled in 1791 and where the CMS met regu
larly. Samuel and his brother Robert Thornton lived at Clapham but Samu
el moved to Albury Park, Guildford in 1801.
Samuel Thornton, lord of Clapham manor, patron of the living and Vice-Pres
ident of the Church Missionary Society offered the living of Clapham to Jo
hn Venn.
Wilberforce lived at Clapham in an apartment in Thornton's residence "Batt
ersea Rise House" (demolished in about 1848) then at "Broomfield" bui
lt by the Thorntons. He moved to Kensington Gore where Thornton died a
nd finally to Mill Hill (1759-1833).
Others friends and supporters of Wilberforce were the Ministers Pitt and F
ox, Windham (who helped the French refugees), the poet Sheriden, Tierne
y, Mackintosh, Burdett, Robert Stewart (Lord Castlereagh), Romilly, Whitbr
ead, Grenville, Sharp, William Smith, Clarkson, Dickson, Dolben, Babbingto
n, Milner and the Moore sisters.
Thornton, Macauley and Wilberforce held East India Company stocks, Grant b
ecame a director and Shore (Lord Teignmouth) was Governor-Genera of India.
Charles Grant, director of the East India Company had houses built for him
self and Edward Elliott at Battersea Rise called "Broomfield" and "Glenel
g" by the Thorntons. Broomfield was also the name of a house in Caterh
am belonging to a Mrs Winter. Charles Grant was responsible for smuggli
ng out missionaries to India against the wishes of the government and t
he East India Company. The Company headquarters (originally the hou
se of Sir William Craven) where Charles Lamb (bur. All Saints, Edmonton) w
as a clerk, was situated to the east of Leadenhall Market (now the si
te of Lloyds Insurance).
Wilberforce also knew Reginald Heber, Bishop of Calcutta. After the Napol
eonic Wars, Wilberforce was one of the MPs who suggested Ceylon, Cape To
wn and Trinidad be retained by Britain. Ceylon became officially Briti
sh after the Peace of Amiens of 27.3.1802. There was a Huguenot settleme
nt in Cape Town where George and Sarah Winter settled for awhile. - theDu
ke of Beaufort was its first Governor.
Lord Henry Bathurst was Secretary of State and contemporary of Wilberfor
ce who knew William Petty, 2nd earl of Shelburne, MP and Secretary of Sta
te (mentioned in John Strange Winter's "Reminiscences").
Wilberforce often helped French émigré clergymen and naval officers in ja
il for debt. He helped to release one midshipman only named in his dia
ry as "E" from Morpeth jail. vicar.
The Wilberforce and Cresse or Creasey families were intermarried:
http://www.pillagoda.freewire.co.uk/GOLDEN.htm
Notes
Note for: James Fitzjames Stephen, 3 MAR 1829 - 1894 Index
Lawyer, professor and judge, principle draftee of the Criminal Code of Can
ada (1892), author of History of the Criminal Law (1883), Liberty, Equalit
y, Fraternity (1873) and other works. The latter book has endured as the c
lassic refutation of John Stuart Mills' On Liberty and the precepts of cla
ssical liberalism.
1829-94, English jurist and journalist; brother of Sir Leslie Stephe
n. He was educated at Eton and Cambridge and was admitted to the bar in 18
54. After 1855 he wrote many articles on ethics, literature, and current t
opics for periodicals, and he was (1865-70) an important contributor to t
he Pall Mall Gazette. The study of jurisprudence, however, was his chief i
nterest. He wrote A General View of the Criminal Law (1863) to expose cert
ain legal anomalies. He served (1869-72) as the legal member of the vicero
y's council in India, preparing a draft codification (later adopted) of t
he law relating to contracts, crime, and evidence. Parliament, however, ne
ver enacted his proposed codification of English criminal law. Stephen con
trasted what he considered the efficient British rule of India with the in
ept government at home, and in Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (1873) he dep
lored the extension of democracy in place of a more autocratic governmen
t. Stephen was (1879-91) a criminal court judge. He was made a baron
et in 1891. His most famous work is his History of the Criminal Law of Eng
land (1883). See biography by his brother Leslie Stephen (1895, repr. 1972
); Harold Potter, Historical Introduction to English Law and Its Instituti
ons (4th ed. 1958).