Clarkson Memorial

Clarkson Memorial

This commemorative monument stands at the centre of Bridge Street in Wisbech. Erected between 1880 and 1881, it was designed by the renowned architect Sir George Gilbert Scott, though responsibility for the design and execution passed to his son John Oldrid Scott following his father's death in 1878. The contractor was Pattinson of Sleaford. The monument was restored around 1984.

The structure is constructed in limestone and red sandstone. Six steps lead up to a buttressed pedestal with four sides. On each side is a red sandstone panel. The first panel bears the inscription "Clarkson / Born at Wisbech / 1760" within a moulded frame. The remaining three panels are relief sculptures with inscriptions. Two of these depict distinguished abolitionists: Granville Sharp and William Wilberforce, both shown seated. The fourth panel is a copy of Wedgwood's iconic 1787 bas-relief of a supplicant slave, designed by William Hackwood, beneath which are carved the words "Remember them that are in bonds." The top of the pedestal is encircled by a cornice of hop leaves, reflecting brewing as an important industry in Wisbech.

Rising from a secondary pedestal is a statue of Thomas Clarkson in white Ancaster stone. The figure stands slightly over life size, holding a scroll in one hand and the broken fetters of a slave in the other. The statue is sheltered by an open canopy with trefoiled heads, supported by buttressed shafts. The canopy is crowned by a lantern with crockets and buttress finials, and a spire terminating in a gilded cross. The entire monument stands approximately 68 feet in height.

Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846), born in Wisbech, was the son of a curate and grammar school headmaster. He was pivotal to the British campaign to end the slave trade and slavery itself. While at Cambridge in 1785, Clarkson won a Latin prize essay competition with the set topic "Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare" ("Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting?"). His research into the Atlantic slave trade deeply moved him, and he resolved to dedicate his life to ending these practices. He translated and published his essay, which proved hugely influential. In 1787, Clarkson helped found the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and was instrumental in persuading William Wilberforce to represent the cause in Parliament. Clarkson travelled throughout the country gathering support and evidence about the slave trade, visiting slave ports, inspecting slave ships, and interviewing seamen, doctors, captains and merchants. He became a celebrated national figure, though he also made bitter enemies. In 1788, when Parliament appointed a select committee to examine the slave trade, Clarkson organised witnesses and material evidence, including the notorious diagram of the arrangement of enslaved people below decks on the slave ship Brookes. During the 1790s, his health declining, Clarkson temporarily withdrew from the campaign, first to the Lake District and then to Suffolk, where he married in 1796. In 1804 he resumed his efforts with renewed vigour, gathering new evidence and pressuring sympathetic Members of Parliament. On 25 March 1807, the Foreign Slave Trade Abolition Bill received royal assent. Clarkson continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery itself and was one of the founding members of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1823. After the Slavery Abolition Act was passed in 1833, he helped end the enforced apprenticeship of former enslaved people in the West Indies. Clarkson died at his home, Playford Hall in Suffolk, on 26 September 1846 and was buried at St Mary's Church, where a listed memorial to him survives. Besides the monument at Wisbech, another stands at High Cross, Thundridge, in Hertfordshire, and in 1996 a tablet was placed in Westminster Abbey near the Wilberforce tomb to mark his sesquicentenary.

The monument was designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, who was knighted and became largely responsible for establishing the tradition of Gothic memorial edifices. Scott's other works in this style included the Martyrs' Memorial (1841–3) in Oxford and the Albert Memorial (1876) in Hyde Park. Scott's brother John was vicar of Wisbech Parish Church.

Following Clarkson's death, the town of Wisbech considered various schemes to commemorate him, including restoration of the grammar school where his father had been headmaster. The public monument was not proposed until the 1870s. Subscriptions were raised from townspeople, with substantial donations from the Peckover family, a Quaker banking family who had been friends of the Clarksons and abolition sympathisers; Jonathan Peckover had subscribed to Olaudah Equiano's influential "Interesting Narrative" published in 1789. Further contributions came from external donors including the Duke of Devonshire, Baroness Burdett-Coutts, Lord Selborne, and Sir Henry Brand, Speaker of the House of Commons and MP for Cambridgeshire. The memorial was unveiled by Sir Henry Brand on 11 November 1881.