A Little Bit of Our History
“God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners.”
William Wilberforce wrote these now-famous words in his journal on Sunday, October 28, 1787.
At the Clapham Group, we like to say that:
We’ve learned a thing or two from our namesake, a group of social reformers in late 18th-century England. Spearheaded by William Wilberforce, a politician who worked to abolish the slave trade, and the poet Hannah More, the historical Clapham Group has shown us that pursuing justice requires a holistic theory of social change; one that leverages both cultural and political influence.
So what exactly have we learned from our namesake? We’re taking some time as an organization to dig into the history that our group has grown out of. For those of you who don’t know much about Hannah More and William Wilberforce, and why we are named after the group that they were a part of, the Clapham Sect, consider this a little crash-course—and for those who do know something about them already, maybe this will be a little refresher.
The Clapham Group’s first client, the film Amazing Grace (2007), tells the story of William Wilberforce and his fight to end slavery, the release of which coincided with the 200th anniversary of the British Parliament voting to end the slave trade. Eric Metaxas wrote a new biography of Wilberforce, published concurrently with the film and bearing the same title (2007). Hannah More also played a unique and crucial role in the fight to end slavery. Karen Swallow Prior, a friend of the Clapham Group, wrote an important new biography of Hannah More aptly titled Fierce Convictions (2014). We have a lot to learn from both the causes that they championed and, just as importantly, the way they campaigned for these causes.
Hannah More, a force to be reckoned with in and of herself—despite being a single woman in Georgian England—had just as much influence as Wilberforce when it came to fighting for the abolition of the slave trade and slavery itself, at least in Great Britain and her colonies. The story of their lives, and those of the many other influential figures they labored with, needs to be told again and again in each generation, in order that we do not forget both the end result of their contribution to liberty and true virtue, and also the way they went about achieving those ends.
More and Wilberforce worked closely together on Wilberforce’s two 'great objects’ for many years. Surrounding themselves with other like-minded co-belligerents such as Thomas Clarkson, Henry Thornton, John Newton, Granville Sharpe, Josiah Wedgwood, William Cowper, and Henry Venn, they labored for many years to abolish slavery and reform the manners (what we would call morals, in today’s parlance) of both the upper and lower classes. Both of these worthy goals had deeply spiritual and religious undertones for More, Wilberforce, and their cohort. They each underwent a deepening of their nominal Christian faith before undertaking these causes and continued to grow in their faith as they labored together for many years. Neither of them would have achieved as much as they did apart from each other nor apart from their faith in Christ.
Hannah More grew up one of five daughters of a school teacher father (hardly very noble beginnings). Having a father for a teacher did have one major advantage, though, especially because at the time, British society did not consider education for girls and women, outside of being trained in the ‘domestic arts’ (i.e. how to run a household), neither suitable nor worth pursuing. More’s father educated all of his daughters alongside his other pupils. The five sisters went on to start their own school for girls, which they ran successfully for more than 30 years. Perhaps because of this early exposure to a well-rounded education, More maintained a love of learning, and in particular the written word (both reading and writing it herself), for the rest of her life. When she was young she always asked for paper, which was not so plenteous and commonplace as it is today, at any gift-giving opportunity.
Portrait of Hannah More as a young woman
William Wilberforce’s father died when he was just nine years old, and when his mother struggled to cope with the loss and raise her son by herself, Wilberforce was taken in and raised by his religiously devout aunt and uncle (i.e. they had deep conviction, not just a nominal faith). Over time, as he grew up and attended various levels of schooling, he strayed from this early foundation in the Christian faith. Wilberforce experienced a re-awakening to a deeper spiritual conviction when, as a young man, he took a trip with a friend and tutor from Cambridge University who also happened to be a devout Christian. On their journey, they read Philip Doddridge’s The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. The trip and the book renewed in Wilberforce the spiritual conviction of his childhood. In 1785 Wilberforce sought the council of John Newton in a secret meeting, during which Newton persuaded Wilberforce that he could stay in politics and serve God, if only he could focus on a worthwhile aim—this focus became his two ‘great objects.’
More and Wilberforce met in Bath in the autumn of 1787. They would remain friends and labor together for important causes the rest of their lives, dying within mere weeks of each other, although More was 14 years his senior. Not only did their religious faith sustain More and Wilberforce and their co-belligerents in their long efforts but, just as importantly, a strength of a moral imagination carried them through many years of long, hard fighting to finally achieve the long-sought-after goal of the abolition of the slave trade, as well as abolishing slavery itself years later in 1833. More and Wilberforce knew, as Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote in 1821, that, “[t]he great instrument of moral good is the imagination.” Just as we at the Clapham Group know the importance of utilizing and harnessing the power of imagination—whether it be through films or music or graphic novels—the members of the Clapham Sect knew that creating and promoting good art, art that implicates the viewer and reader, can go a long way to achieving the noble ends to which you are striving.
In addition to the many poems that More and others (including William Cowper) wrote on the subject of the abolition of the slavery, Josiah Wedgwood, a friend of the Clapham Sect, first created his now-famous medallion picturing a kneeling slave in chains with the words ‘Am I not a Man and Brother?’ around 1787. This image appeared in many forms on many artifacts, including plates manufactured by Wedgwood’s own ceramics business. He even send some medallions to Benjamin Franklin in America, who remarked that the image's effectiveness was "equal to that of the best-written Pamphlet, in procuring favor to those oppressed People.”
In A Defence of Poetry, Percy Bysshe Shelley also wrote that, “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world,” by which he meant that poets (and arguably those who produce all types of creative arts) have just as much, if not more, influence over the most important issues of the day, as do the politicians who write the laws. Wilberforce himself acknowledged the role that Hannah More and others played with their writing—by igniting the collective moral imagination of a people—to achieve their goal, despite the fact that he was at first doubtful that More’s poetry could have much influence on changing the minds and deciding the fate of such an important issue as slavery.
More and Wilberforce continued to fight for the abolition of slavery even after many others had given up, although that was not the only cause they took up at that time. Springing from an original idea from Wilberforce and his sister during a visit to the countryside when they visited Hannah More and her sister Patty, the Sunday School movement helped thousands of poor working-class English men, women, and children learn to read and learn about the basic tenets of Christianity in the process.
Although Wilberforce and More are perhaps best known for their work as abolitionists, they also undertook what Wilberforce called in his journal entry of 1787 the ‘Reformation of Manners.’ This included both reforming the manners (i.e. morals) of the upper class and the lower class. More believed strongly that, “Reformation must begin with the GREAT, or it will never be effectual. Their example is the fountain whence the vulgar draw their habits, actions, and characters. To expect to reform the poor while the opulent are corrupt, is to throw odours [i.e. perfumes] into the stream while the springs are poisoned” To this end More wrote Thoughts on the Importance of the Manners of the Great (1787), aimed at reforming the manners of the elite classes, which had a great influence on the members of the upper class—several editions were published within months of its first publication.
To tackle the reformation of the lower classes, More embarked on her Cheap Repository Tracts endeavor, which again proved hugely successful. Written in the form of pamphlets, not whole books or short poems, these short moral tales proved to be her most influential and highly praised, not to mention the most profitable (despite their cheap price tag) of all her works. As well as preaching good morals, many of her tracts taught explicit Christian morals as well, and to great success. But More was not only witty with her pen but savvy in her marketing—she hired one of the best engravers in London to illustrate the covers of her pamphlets with original woodcuts, knowing full well that first impressions matter.
The Clapham Sect used a three-pronged approach in their efforts: alleviating the suffering and oppression of the lower classes, reforming excessive and negligent behaviors of the upper classes, and advancing Christianity (at home and abroad). If it sounds like the aims of the Clapham Sect (including animal welfare as well as all that they labored for to better humanity) are similar to those of our Clapham Group today, that is no accident! We look to William Wilberforce, Hannah More, Josiah Wedgwood, and others as models for our work today. We believe that Wilberforce, More, and other members of the Clapham Sect exemplified the salt and light that Christ calls us all to be.
As Jesus taught us in the Sermon on the Mount:
You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven. (Matthew 5:13-16)
Henry Thornton, one of the other key members of the Clapham Sect, once remarked, “I am in hopes some good may come out of our Clapham system;” so, too, we at the Clapham Group, hope that ‘some good’ may come out of our work today. Let us be salt and light together in our world today. Soli Deo Gloria!
Battersea Rise (Henry Thornton's House in Clapham -- the centre of activity for the Clapham Sect