Beyond 1807

In the wake of the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act passed in 1807, effectively outlawing the middle passage by banning the transportation of slaves from Africa to the West Indies and America, abolitionists turned their attention to the complete emancipation of slaves in Great Britain and the Empire.

It was a gradual process. An organised and concerted campaign against slavery warned against its reintroduction. The campaign consisted of petitions and public meetings, including in Plymouth where, in 1814 Mayor Henry Woollcombe, responding to a plea from influential Plymouth residents including William Ellford, Richard Derry, William and George Eastlake and Joseph and William Prideaux, published notice of a meeting at the Guildhall on 4 July and arranged for a petition to be sent to the Prince Regent:

By the end of July 1814, 864 petitions had been submitted to London, bearing 755,000 signatures.

In 1823, Mayor W Adams Wellford called a public meeting for 9 April at the Guildhall and organised the petitioning of parliament “for the gradual abolition of slavery throughout the colonies and dominions of the united Empire”. As reported in the Times, in the House of Commons on Thursday 15 May, the foreign secretary George Canning

Contributing to a nationwide effort to keep pressure on the government, in Plymouth Mayor Nicholas Lockyer called a meeting for 23 February 1824 to consider petitioning parliament “for the progressive amelioration of the condition of [slaves] in the colonies, in accordance with humane views.” By the summer of that year a further 777 petitions from around the country had been submitted to parliament advocating gradual emancipation. Again in Plymouth, a meeting on 21 February 1826 chaired by Mayor W H Hawker, “corresponding with the resolutions of parliament” voted to petition parliament recommending the end of slavery in the colonies. Another meeting called by Mayor Richard Pridham on 23 May 1828 organised a petition "on the subject of ameliorating slavery in the colonies and the British Empire."

Sponsors of the numerous public meetings and petitions organised in Plymouth included Quakers, ministers, professionals and businessmen, among them John Prideaux. Prideaux's involvement in the anti-slavery movement went beyond meetings and petitions. In two letters he sent to John Whiteford, the Borough's Town Clerk, in late 1825 and early 1826, Prideaux described his involvement representing a woman slave who had arrived in Plymouth on board ship. He quoted correspondence from the Anti-Slavery Society in London giving advice about her legal status: she could see a Magistrate and be certified as free, if she so chose. Ultimately she declined, although Prideaux suspected that not all was right: "It does not seem our business to interfere unless we are sure that unfair advantage has been taken of her."

After many years of hard campaigning, the mighty efforts of the anti-slavery movement were finally rewarded when, on 14 May 1833, Edward Stanley (later the 14th Earl of Derby), the Minister for War and the Colonies, introduced the Slavery Abolition Bill in the House of Commons. On 25 June the Bill was passed to the House of Lords where, on Tuesday 20 August, it passed through its third reading.

The Slavery Abolition Act came into force on 28 August. Under the terms of the Act, on 1 August 1834 all slaves in the British Empire under the age of six were freed immediately. Those aged six and over were made “apprenticed labourers”, effectively given partial freedom as indentured workers for their former owners. The apprentice system was abolished in 1838 following peaceful protests in Trinidad, so guaranteeing the complete emancipation of all former slaves in the colonies.

Also included in the Act was the provision that slave owners in the West Indies were awarded compensation depending upon the number of slaves they owned. In total, £20 million was paid out. The freed slaves did not receive a penny.

Learn more about slavery and abolition and the Plymouth connection:

John Hawkins

Slave Trade Triangle

Abolition

Conclusion

Glossary

Suggested reading

Slavery and abolition web links