CITY HISTORY

Bristol docks in the mid-19th century

The tale of Thomas Clarkson

The unwillingness to face up to inconvenient truths remains as much an issue today as it was when an unlikely hero set out to subvert the trade which made Bristol rich. While the Colston statue’s demise speaks of unfinished business and a narrative in dire need of revision if the whiplash scars of history are to heal, Andrew Swift finds solace in the story of Clarkson the clergyman

The toppling of the statue of Edward Colston on 7 June was one of those defining moments that will be remembered for centuries to come. Unlike many such moments, however, no one was injured and no damage was caused – except to the statue. But, even though the mood that sultry afternoon was celebratory rather than threatening, many undoubtedly felt threatened by what they saw as the destruction of a key part of Bristol’s heritage.

It is remarkable that someone who died almost 300 years ago should be the focus of such strong feeling, especially as the slave trade from which Colston derived so much of his wealth was outlawed over 200 years ago. Colston’s statue was of more recent vintage, however. Unveiled in 1895, it not only celebrated his philanthropy but also indicated a willingness to overlook the trade that funded such largesse. It was that willingness which led to the statue’s toppling 125 years later.

Clearly, there is unfinished business here, and a narrative in dire need of revision if the whiplash scars of history are to heal. Fortunately, there are other, more positive narratives to turn to – those which tell of the fight to end the murky trade that brought Colston, and Bristol, so much wealth. Among those who fought to end the evils of slavery – Wesley, Wilberforce, Granville Sharp, Hannah More and others – the name that burns most brightly in Bristol’s firmament is that of Thomas Clarkson.

Clarkson was an unlikely hero. While at Cambridge University The men Clarkson wanted to interview would be found in one of the most dangerous cities in the land, Bristol. As word about his mission spread he became a marked man

studying for the priesthood, he wrote an essay – in Latin – for a competition. The subject he addressed was whether it was ‘lawful to make slaves of others against their wills.’ So impressive were his arguments that he won first prize; he also became convinced that ‘if the contents of the essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end’. He had discovered the cause which would dominate and define his life. When his essay – translated into English –was published, it became a best-seller, and in 1787 he became a founder member of a national association for the abolition of the slave trade.

Veteran campaigner Granville Sharp was the association’s figurehead, but Clarkson was its driving force. The main problem facing the

abolitionists was that, with few exceptions, the only people with direct experience of the slave trade were those engaged in it. Naturally, they gave assurances that slave ships were well regulated and the enslaved were well treated. The only way to counter their arguments was by gathering enough evidence to discredit them. The first place Clarkson visited in his quest for hard facts was Bristol. As he approached the city on the evening of 27 June 1787, he was struck by its prodigious size and ‘began now to tremble, for the first time, at the arduous task I had undertaken, of attempting to subvert one of the branches of the commerce of the great place which was then before me... I questioned whether I should ever get out of it alive.’

Most doors were closed against him. ‘The owners of vessels employed in the Trade there,’ he wrote, ‘forbad all intercourse with me.’ He had been told, however, that sailors had ‘an aversion to enter and were inveigled, if not forced, into this hateful employment’. Disgruntled sailors would, he figured, be the best source of information. The problem was finding them. He was a middle-class clergyman; the men he wanted to interview would be found in the roughest parts of one of the most dangerous cities in the land. Not only that: as word about his mission spread he became a marked man.

Clarkson visited pubs where sailors who crewed slave ships were found. He gathered ample evidence to confirm his suspicions that most sailors were tricked onto these ships by lies and fraud

One person who came forward to help him was the landlord of the Seven Stars in Thomas Lane, a man known simply as Thompson, who received sailors at the end of their voyages and helped them find places on other ships, but refused to have any dealings with the slave trade.

With Thompson as his guide, Clarkson visited pubs where sailors who had crewed slave ships were likely to be found. He soon gathered ample evidence to confirm his suspicions that most sailors were tricked onto these ships by lies and fraud. He was also able to prove, using information from muster rolls, that, far from being a ‘nursery for British seamen’, as anti-abolitionists claimed, slave ships were floating graves for sailors and the enslaved alike, with far more sailors dying on them than on all the other vessels sailing out of Bristol put together.

The evidence Clarkson collected provided the abolitionists with an unanswerable case for reform. It may have taken 20 years from the time he stepped over the threshold of the Seven Stars for the slave trade to be abolished, but his work in Bristol created a momentum that was unstoppable. Yet, while his legacy is celebrated elsewhere, in Bristol, at least until recently, his name has been almost forgotten.

On 1 May 2009, however, following a campaign by local historians Mark Steeds and Roger Ball, a plaque designed by Mike Baker was unveiled on the Seven Stars to honour Clarkson’s role – and that of the pub’s 18th-century landlord – in the abolition movement.

The line-up of speakers at the event included Paul Stephenson, who in 1963, after the Bristol Bus Company refused to employ black or Asian bus crews, organised a 60-day boycott which ended when the company backed down. Later, his refusal to leave a Bristol pub that had a colourPaul Stephenson at the unveiling of the plaque

bar led to a court appearance, national media coverage and an invitation to help frame the government’s first anti-discrimination laws. In his speech, he emphasised not only the centrality of Clarkson to Bristol’s history, but also his role in the ongoing struggle for civil rights.

The plaque was unveiled by Richard Hart, an historian and civil rights lawyer from Jamaica who played a key role in the transition from colonial rule to independence in the Caribbean. He was also attorney general of Grenada until the American invasion of 1983, when he moved to Bristol, where he lived until his death in 2013.

As the experiences of Paul Stephenson and Richard Hart – along with millions of others – demonstrate, injustice, inequality, prejudice and an institutionalised unwillingness to face up to inconvenient truths remain as much an issue today as they were when Clarkson set out to subvert the trade which made Bristol rich.

Over two centuries after Britain abolished the trade, it can seem as though the dialogue that should have happened back then has hardly begun. The toppling of Colston certainly marks some sort of ending; we can only hope that it also marks the beginning of a brighter and more honest future, inspired by the courage, determination and honesty of luminaries such as Clarkson.

• More about Thomas Clarkson can be found in a major new book, From Wulfstan to Colston: Severing the Sinews of Slavery in Bristol. Written by Mark Steeds and Roger Ball, it traces the story of Bristol’s links with the slave trade and abolition from the earliest times to the present day. From Wulfstan to Colston is available from Tangent Books; tangentbooks.co.uk)