Abstract
Granville Sharp has been immortalized in annals of the antislavery movement. As the individual who instituted proceedings in the Somerset case (1772), which contributed so significantly to the death of legal black slavery in England, Sharp was one of the earliest of abolition heroes.1 What is often not known is the degree to which Sharp was concerned about the plight of the white working classes as well, and that he championed their cause for better social and economic opportunity. His concern for justice extended itself equally to the American Indians, the Caribbean peoples under colonial rule, the Irish, the Scots Highlanders, and both American and French revolutionists fighting for rights and liberties.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
It is now understood that the Somerset case did not result in freedom for all blacks in England. Numerous cases were brought between 1772 and 1833 and their decisions indicate ambiguity and confusion. It was not until the Emancipation Act of 1833 that the issues were finally settled. See James Walvin, Black and White: The Negro in English Society 1555–1945 (London: Penguin, 1973) chs 7–8.
See, for example, Roger Anstey, The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition 1760–1810 (London: Macmillan, 1975);
David B. Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press, 1975);
Betty Fladeland, Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Antislavery Co-operation (Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1972).
Sharp, ‘Some Remarks on the Case of John Hylas and his Wife Mary’, p. 14, and Sharp to Joseph Banks, 20 Feb 1772, Sharp Letter Book; Memoirs of Sharp, vol. I, p. 212. See Davis, The Problem of Slavery, ch. 9, for an extended treatment of Sharp’s theorizing on the subject of villeinage. For more background see Christopher Hill, ‘The Norman Yoke’, in Democracy and the Labour Movement, ed. John Saville (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1954) pp. 11–66.
Sharp to Rufus King, 30 Jan 1797, J. A. Woods Transcripts; [Sharp], A Short Sketch of Temporary Regulations (until Better Shall be Proposed) for the Intended Settlement on the Grain Coast of Africa, Near Sierra Leone, 2nd ed (London: H. Bladwin, 1786). He included in this plan a rule for an eight-hour work day.
Henry Douglas to Sharp, 15 Dec 1772, and Sharp to Henry Douglas, 21 Dec 1772, Sharp Letter Book. See also Paul Mantoux, The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century (London: Jonathan Cape, 1928) p. 74, on the conditions of these workers.
Sharp to Wilberforce, 25 Mar 1794, 4 and 27 Aug 1796, and ‘Notes on Impressment’, J. A. Woods Transcripts; Sharp, Tracts Concerning the Ancient and Only True Legal Means of National Defence, by a Free Militia, 3rd ed (London: Dilly, 1782); DNB, vol. xvii, pp. 1337–42.
The yacht belonged to Granville’s brother James. Sharp Diary, entry for 29 Aug 1777, J. A. Woods Transcripts; John A. Woods, ‘James Sharp: Common Councillor of London in the Time of Wilkes’, in Statesmen, Scholars and Merchants. Essays in Eighteenth Century History Presented to Dame Lucy Sutherland, ed. J. S. Bromley and P. G. M. Dickenson (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973) ch. 14; Memoirs of Sharp, vol. i, pp. 214–15.
The word ‘winsome’ is used by Ernest M. Howse in Saints in Politics: The Clapham Sect and the Growth of Freedom (Toronto: Univ. of Toronto Press, 1952) p. 21.
Copyright information
© 1984 Betty Fladeland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fladeland, B. (1984). Granville Sharp. In: Abolitionists and Working-Class Problems in the Age of Industrialization. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06997-2_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-06997-2_1
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-06999-6
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-06997-2
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)