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Clarkson, Thomas 1760-1846
English antislavery campaigner

Born in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, and educated at St Paul's School, and St John's College, Cambridge, he gained a prize for a Latin essay in 1785 on the question 'Is it right to make slaves of others against their will?', which in an English translation (1786) was widely read. In 1787, in association with William Wilberforce and Granville Sharp, he formed an antislavery society and after the passing of the British antislavery laws (1807) wrote History of the Abolition of the African Slave trade (2 vols, 1808). He campaigned for the abolition of slavery in the colonies and saw it attained in 1833.

Bibliography: Ellen Gibson Wilson, Thomas Clarkson: A Biography (1989)