page_title: Thomas Clarkson
section_title: Later life
hierarchical_section_title: Thomas Clarkson / Later life
caption_attribution_description: Clarkson Memorial, Wisbech. Sides of original photo removed.This is a photo of listed building number 1228597.
context_page_description: Thomas Clarkson was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade and helped achieve passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807, which ended British trade in slaves.
  In his later years, Clarkson campaigned for the abolition of slavery worldwide; it was then concentrated in the Americas. In 1840, he was the key speaker at the Anti-Slavery Society's first conference in London, England which campaigned to end slavery in other countries.
context_section_description: Throughout his life Clarkson was a frequent guest of Joseph Hardcastle (the first treasurer of the London Missionary Society) at Hatcham House in Deptford, then a Surrey village. In the early 1790s he met his wife, a niece of Mrs Hardcastle here. Clarkson wrote much of his History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade (1808) at Hatcham House.
  His younger brother John Clarkson (1764–1828) took a major part in organising the relocation of approximately 1200 Black Loyalists to Africa in early 1792. They were among the 3000 former United States slaves given their freedom by the British and granted land in Nova Scotia, Canada, after the American Revolutionary War. This group chose to go to the new colony of Sierra Leone established by the British in West Africa, founding Freetown. John Clarkson was appointed its first Governor.
  Thomas Clarkson died on 26 September 1846 in Playford, Suffolk. He was buried in the village on 2 October at St Mary's Church.
  The Clarkson chest and Clarkson Collection are now on display in Wisbech & Fenland Museum.
caption: The Clarkson Memorial, Wisbech
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