Clapham Sect

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The Clapham Sect was an influential group of like-minded Church of England social reformers in England at the beginning of the nineteenth century (active c. 1790 – 1830).

Campaigns and successes

Its members were chiefly prominent and wealthy evangelical Anglicans 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 British society and in Parliament, the group saw their efforts rewarded with the final passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807, banning the trade throughout the British Empire and, after many further years of campaigning, the total emancipation of British slaves with the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to eradicate slavery throughout the world.

Lampooned in their day as "the saints", the group published a journal, the Christian Observer, edited by Zachary Macaulay 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:

• William Dealtry (1775–1847), Rector of Clapham, mathematician
• Edward James Eliot (1758–97), 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
• Katherine Hankey (1834–1911), missionary and psalmist
• Zachary Macaulay (1768–1838), estate manager, colonial governor, father of Thomas Babington Macaulay
• Hannah More (1745–1835), writer and philanthropist
• Edward Parry (1750–1827), administrator, chairman of the directors of the British East India Company
• Granville Sharp (1735–1813), scholar and administrator
• Charles Simeon (1759–1836), Anglican minister, promoter of missions
• William Smith (1756–1835), M.P. for Norwich, grandfather of Florence Nightingale
• James Stephen (1758–1832), Master of Chancery
• Lord Teignmouth (1751–1834), Governor-General of India
• Samuel Thornton (1754–1838)) MP, Governor of the Bank of England^[1]
• Henry Thornton (1760–1815), economist, banker, philanthropist, MP for Southwark, great-grandfather of writer E.M. Forster
• Henry Venn (1725–97), founder of the group, father of John Venn and great-grandfather of John Venn (originator of the Venn diagram)
• John Venn (175 –1813), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Clapham
• William Wilberforce (1759–1833), MP successively for Kingston upon Hull,Yorkshire and Bramber, leading abolitionist

References

See also

• Clapham Common Northside
• Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - Clapham Sect