Justice and the Courts
Posts in The Copybook tagged ‘Justice and the Courts’
After a hundred and forty-two slaves were tossed overboard in an insurance scam, Granville Sharp wouldn’t let the matter rest.
The scandal of the slave-ship ‘Zong’ was one of the turning points in the campaign to end slavery throughout the British Empire. As so often, the quest for justice was led by self-taught jurist Granville Sharp, who turned to the Press after a sensational court case had failed to deliver any kind of justice at all.
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.
Granville Sharp and his surgeon brother William rescued a young African man from the streets of London.
From the late 1760s, Granville Sharp (1734-1813), a Clerk in the Ordnance Office at the Tower of London, acquired a formidable reputation as an anti-slavery campaigner. By the 1800s, the mere mention of his name brought trembling slave-owners to the negotiating table. It all began quite by accident in 1767, when Granville received a letter from someone called Jonathan Strong, claiming to know him.
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.