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Information About

Clapham Sect





CAMPAIGNS AND SUCCESSES

Its members were chiefly prominent and wealthy Evangelical Anglican s who shared common political views concerning the Liberation Of Slaves , the abolition of the Slave Trade and the reform of the penal system.

The group's name originates from Clapham , then a village south of London (today part of south-west London), where both Wilberforce and Thornton , the sect's two most influential leaders, resided and where many of the group's meetings were held. They were supported by Beilby Porteus , Bishop Of London , who sympathised with many of their aims.

After many decades of work both in Parliament and in general society, they and their successors saw their efforts rewarded, as England finally banned the Slave Trade , both in the British Isles and the Empire , and used its influence and power to eradicate legal Slavery throughout the world.

Lampooned in their day as "the saints", the group published a journal, the ''Christian Observer'', and were also credited with the foundation of several missionary and tract societies, including the British And Foreign Bible Society and the Church Missionary Society .


MEMBERS

Members of The Clapham Sect included:

Thomas Babington ( 1800 - 1859 }, 1st Baron Macaulay, MP for Calne

Thomas Clarkson ( 1760 - 1846 ), classicist and campaigner

Edward James Eliot ( 1758 - 1797 ), parliamentarian

Thomas Gisbourne ( 1758 - 1846 ), clergyman and author

Charles Grant ( 1746 - 1823 ), administrator, chairman of the directors of the British East India Company , father of the first Lord Glenelg

Zachary Macaulay ( 1768 - 1838 ), estate manager, colonial governor, father of Thomas Macaulay

Hannah More ( 1745 - 1835 ), writer and philanthropist

Granville Sharp ( 1735 - 1813 ), scholar and administrator

Charles Simeon ( 1759 - 1836 ), Anglican minister, promoter of missions

William Smith , M.P. ( 1756 - 1835 ), parliamentarian

James Stephen ( 1758 - 1832 ), Master of Chancery

Lord Teignmouth ( 1751 - 1834 ), Governor-General of India

Henry Thornton ( 1760 - 1815 ), economist, banker, philanthropist, MP for Southwark , grandfather of writer E.M. Forster

Henry Venn ( 1725 - 1797 ), founder of the group

John Venn ( 1759 - 1813 ), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Clapham

William Wilberforce , M.P. ( 1759 - 1833 ), parliamentarian, leading abolitionist