Thomas Clarkson

Thomas Clarkson 1760-1846, English abolitionist. He devoted most of his life to agitation against slavery, and the voluminous information that he gathered on the slave trade helped to influence Parliament. With William Wilberforce he shares the chief credit for the act of 1807 abolishing the British slave trade. His best-known books are a history of Parliament's abolition of the slave trade (1805) and a memoir of William Penn (1813).

Bibliography: See his correspondence with H. Christophe, ed. by E. L. Griggs and C. H. Prator (1952, repr. 1968).

Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846), anti-slave-trade agitator. In 1787 he was involved in the establishment of a Christian settlement for poor Blacks in Sierra Leone and, with some leading Quakers and with W. Wilberforce, he formed a group which pressed in the House of Commons for the abolition of the slave-trade in the British Empire (achieved in 1807).

Clarkson, Thomas (1760–1846) British philanthropist. A strong opponent of slavery, he became a founder member of the Committee for the Suppression of the Slave Trade. He collected much information about the trade and conditions on slave ships, which was published in a pamphlet and used by William WILBERFORCE in his parliamentary campaign for abolition. In 1807 an Act was passed prohibiting British participation in the SLAVE TRADE. In 1823 Clarkson became a leading member of the Anti-Slavery Society, which saw its efforts rewarded with the 1833 Act abolishing slavery in the British empire.