When a Tahitian sailor was denied his well-earned wages, the rumour got about that Granville Sharp was on the case.
Although William Wilberforce is rightly remembered as the architect of slavery’s downfall in the British Empire, much credit also goes to Granville Sharp (1735-1813). Sharp’s tireless campaigning put such fear into traffickers that the mere rumour of his involvement could set a man at liberty.
After James Somerset was loaded onto a British slave-ship bound for Jamaica, Granville Sharp and other committed Christians turned to the courts for justice.
In 1769, Boston merchant Charles Stewart brought James Somerset, whom he had bought as a slave in the Massachusetts Bay colony, to England. James escaped, was recaptured and imprisoned on a slave-ship bound for Jamaica. Anti-slavery campaigner Granville Sharp issued a writ of Habeas Corpus and in 1772 forced Stewart and the ship’s captain in front of the Chief Justice, Lord Mansfield.