Campaigners from history:
granville sharp

Granville Sharp was an early abolitionist and defender of slaves. He argued it was illegal to hold people as slaves in Britain, successfully freeing numerous slaves and protecting Africans in Britain from capture.

Born in 1735, Sharp grew up in a large family for whom religion and music were central. Both his father and grandfather were archbishops and he, and seven of his siblings, were musicians. Their performances brought them popularity and royal patronage, which proved invaluable in later years.

To earn a living Sharp was required to train as an apprentice to several linen merchants, but he had little interest in the trade and instead spent much of his time studying. From a young age he held strong opinions and was prepared to defend them, writing on many subjects, particularly liberty and religion. But, from 1765, his main vocation was the abolition of slavery.

That year he had his first encounter with a slave. One day, he saw a young African man stumbling in the street who had been badly injured following a vicious beating from his master and left for dead. His name was Jonathan Strong. He told Sharp he was a slave from the West Indies who had accompanied his master, David Lisle, on a visit to London.

Sharp paid for Strong to be admitted to hospital. Once he had recovered, Sharp arranged for a paid position for him as a footman in a house nearby. After two years, Strong was spotted by Lisle, who, seeing him in good health and thinking of making a quick profit, recaptured him and had him jailed with the intention of selling him as his property.

Strong's employer made no attempt to stop Lisle from kidnapping Strong, and only appealed for financial compensation for his loss. Strong realised his only chance of being saved from a life of slavery, was to contact Sharp. Sharp used his influence to call a hearing in front of the Lord Mayor, an unusual move for such a case, and successfully argued that Strong had not committed an offence and should be freed.

This experience made Sharp aware of the general level of ignorance and confusion regarding slavery under British law. He became determined to learn as much as possible, and immersed himself in legal history.

News of Sharp's victory in the Strong case spread quickly and many former slaves contacted him for legal help when they were threatened with re-enslavement or when they were abducted. All faced an establishment which firmly believed in the system of slavery and supported slave masters carrying out horrific forms of retribution against recaptured slaves, such as castration and flogging, as punishment for their escape.

Sharp was determined to set a legal precedent that demonstrated slavery was illegal in Britain. He was finally given the opportunity in 1772, in the case of James Somerset, a slave who had run away from his master the year before during a visit to London. He was recaptured and his master tried to take him back to Jamaica. Somerset contacted Sharp to help prove he was a free man.

For Sharp this was not just a case of preventing freed slaves from being re-enslaved, but of proving that slavery was illegal in Britain and therefore that all slaves should automatically be seen as free once they set foot in the country.

The case was overseen by Lord Chief Justice William Mansfield who, in his ruling, reluctantly concluded that masters could not legally force slaves to return to the colonies once they were in Britain. Sharp and the press quickly seized on this decision as an emancipation proclamation for all slaves in the country.

Over the following years, Sharp joined forces with other abolitionists, including Quobna Ottobah Cugaono and Olaudah Equiano, with whom he attempted to free former slaves from enslavement and campaigned against the institution of slavery.

Sharp was one of the few people in Britain at that time to argue for the abolition of slavery. He was also an enthusiastic supporter of having freed slaves returned to Africa and given their own land. To ensure their free status, in 1787, Sharp helped set up the colony of Sierra Leone . He was committed to it and to trade with Africa despite setbacks and failures.

In the same year, he helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and became its first chairman. The Society's members included Thomas Clarkson, who later became the first president of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (as Anti-Slavery International was then known).

Granville Sharp died in Fulham, south-west London, on 6 July 1813, and is buried in Fulham Churchyard. There is memorial to him there, and another in Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Sharp was a lifelong campaigner for abolition. He not only helped individual Africans find freedom in Britain but also helped establish a legal precedent to support the freedom of slaves and Africans in this country and ultimately helped pave the way for abolition of the slave trade and emancipation.

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