Thomas Clarkson was an English anti-slavery advocate. He was born in 1760 at Wisbeach, Cambridgeshire and died in 1846. He was originally intended for the church, and studied at St John's College, Cambridge, where he gained the vice-chancellor's prize for a Latinessay on the theme, 'Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare ?' (Is it lawful to make slaves of men against their will?), published in 1786. His researches for this dissertation roused in him a passionate antagonism to the slave-trade, and he allied himself with the Quakers and with William Wilberforce.
While the latter advocated the cause in parliament, Thomas Clarkson conducted the agitation throughout England, even crossing to France to obtain the co-operation of the National Convention. His labours went far to secure the prohibition of the slave-trade in 1807, in 1823 assisting in the founding the Anti-Slavery Society for the suppression of slavery in the West Indies, and the emancipation act of 1833. His literary works comprise: A Portraiture of Quakerism (1806); History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1808); Memoirs of WilliamPenn (1813); Researches, Antediluvian, Patriarchal, and Historical (1836); besides numerous pamphlets, etc. Research Thomas Clarkson
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