Editing Clapham Sect

{{Short description|Group of Church of England social reformers}}
{{Use British English|date=October 2017}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=January 2024}}
[[File:WILLIAM WILBERFORCE AND THE CLAPHAM SECT WORSHIPPED IN THIS CHURCH. THEIR CAMPAIGNING RESULTED IN THE ABOLITION OF SLAVERY IN BRITISH DOMINIONS 1833.jpg|thumb|[[Blue plaque]] commemorating William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect]]
The '''Clapham Sect''', or '''Clapham Saints''', were a group of social reformers associated with [[Holy Trinity Clapham]]  in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s. Despite the label "[[sect]]", most members remained in the [[Established Church|established]] (and dominant) [[Church of England]], which was highly interwoven with offices of state.

== History ==
{{expand section|date=December 2022}}
The [[Clapham]] movement grew from 18th-century evangelical trends in the Church of England (the [[Anglican Church]]) and started to coalesce around residents of Clapham, especially during the rectorship there of [[John Venn (priest)|John Venn]] (in office: 1792-1813)<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Venn
 |first1               = John
 |author-link1         = John Venn
 |date                 = 8 March 2012
 |orig-date            = 1904
 |title                = Annals of a Clerical Family: Being Some Account of the Family and Descendants of William Venn, Vicar of Otterton, Devon, 1600-1621
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=rRcFkXb_-OoC
 |series               = Cambridge Library Collection - Religion
 |edition              = reprint
 |location             = Cambridge
 |publisher            = Cambridge University Press
 |isbn                 = 9781108044929
 |access-date          = 2 December 2022
 |quote                = [...] John [Venn] was the founder of an evangelical sect at Clapham (where his father had also been curate), and of the Church Missionary Society [...].
}}
</ref>
and came to engage in systematically advocating social reform.<ref>
{{cite book
 |author1              = Nirmala Sharma
 |date                 = 21 March 2016
 |title                = Unraveling Misconceptions: A New Understanding of E. M. Forster's ''A Passage to India''
 |publisher = Xlibris Corporation
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=hJ7XCwAAQBAJ
 |isbn                 = 9781514475218
 |access-date          = 2 December 2022
 |quote                = 'The Clapham Sect was a group of evangelical reformers that presented a new “crystallization of power: parliament, the Established Church, the journals of opinion, the universities, the City, the civil and fighting services, the government of the Empire. Clapham found a place in them all, not infrequently a distinguished one.' [...]  The Clapham Sect was also noted for its 'advocacy of the abolition of the slave trade.'
}}
</ref>

In the course of time the growth of evangelical [[Christian revival]]ism in England<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Ditchfield
 |first1               = G. M.
 |year                 = 2003
 |orig-date            = 1998
 |title                = The Evangelical Revival
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=zWv9LeLsyhUC
 |series               = Introductions to history
 |edition              = reprint
 |location             = London
 |publisher            = Psychology Press
 |isbn                 = 9781857284812
 |access-date          = 1 December 2022
}}
</ref>
and the movement for [[Catholic emancipation]] fed into a waning of the old precept that every Englishman automatically counted as an Anglican.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Morgan
 |first1               = Edmund S.
 |author-link1         = Edmund Morgan (historian)
 |date                 = 28 June 2017
 |orig-date            = 2015
 |title                = Visible Saints: The History of a Puritan Idea
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=fAQqDwAAQBAJ
 |publisher            = Pickle Partners Publishing
 |isbn                 = 9781787204683
 |access-date          = 1 December 2022
 |quote                = Every Englishman had been automatically transformed by government decree into a member of the new Anglican church.
}}
</ref>
Some new Christian groups (such as the [[Methodism|Methodists]] and the [[Plymouth Brethren]]) moved away from Anglicanism, and the Christian social reformers who succeeded the Claphamites from about the 1830s<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Twells
 |first1               = Alison
 |date                 = 17 December 2008
 |title                = The Civilising Mission and the English Middle Class, 1792-1850: The 'Heathen' at Home and Overseas
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=YvyGDAAAQBAJ
 |edition              = reprint
 |location             = Basingstoke
 |publisher            = Springer
 |page                 = 38
 |isbn                 = 9780230234727
 |access-date          = 1 December 2022
 |quote                = The 'Claphamites' were a group of powerful and influential men associated with the Clapham congregation [...].
}}
</ref>
often exemplified [[Nonconformist conscience]]<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Bradley
 |first1               = Ian C.
 |author-link1         = Ian C. Bradley
 |year                 = 1976
 |title                = The Call to Seriousness: The Evangelical Impact on the Victorians
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=iX7ZAAAAMAAJ
 |publisher            = Cape
 |page                 = 16
 |isbn                 = 9780224011624
 |access-date          = 1 December 2022
 |quote                = [...] the [...] very important contribution made by Nonconformity to British life in the nneteenth century.
}}
</ref>
and identified with groups functioning outside the established Anglican Church.<ref>
{{cite book
 |last1                = Carter
 |first1               = Grayson
 |editor-last1         = Litzenberger
 |editor-first1        = C. J.
 |editor-last2         = Lyon
 |editor-first2        = Eileen Groth
 |year                 = 2006
 |chapter              = Evangelical Religion
 |title                = The Human Tradition in Modern Britain
 |url                  = https://books.google.com/books?id=S8YbICxXWDQC
 |series               = Reference, Information and Interdisciplinary Subjects Series
 |location             = Lanham
 |publisher            = Rowman & Littlefield
 |pages                 = 56–57
 |isbn                 = 9780742537354
 |access-date          = 25 November 2022
 |quote                = By the end of the long eighteenth century [1688-1832], the members of the Clapham Sect were quickly passing from the scene. [...] The successors of the Clapham Sect lived at a time of rapid and fundamental social change, arising primarily from the continued effects of industrialization. [...] various issues challenged in different ways the spiritual aspirations of the evangelical movement, producing considerable pressure (and even unrest) within its ranks. As a result, during the late 1820s and early 1830s, the 'Gospel movement' began to fragment into a number of diverse, but not altogether distinct, parties and even denominations. Examples of millennial and apocalyptic speculation, ultra-Calvinistic doctrines, and even extreme forms of Pentecostalism, could now be found among the adherents of evangelical religion, leading many traditional evangelicals to lose confidence in the ability of the 'Gospel movement' to bring about the spiritual renewal of the English church and the nation as a whole.
}}
</ref>

==Summary and context==
These were reformists and abolitionists, being contemporary terms as the 'Sect' was &ndash; until 1844 &ndash; unnamed. They figured and heard readings, sermons and lessons from prominent and wealthy [[Evangelical Anglican]]s who called for the [[Abolitionism|liberation of slaves]],<ref>Ann M.  Burton, "British Evangelicals, Economic Warfare and the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1794–1810." ''Anglican and Episcopal History'' 65#2 (1996): 197–225. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42611776 in JSTOR]</ref> abolition of the [[History of slavery|slave trade]] and the [[Prison reform|reform of the penal system]], and recognised and advocated other cornerstone civil-political rights and socio-economic rights. Defying the [[status quo]] of [[labour exploitation]] and consequent vested interests in the legislature was laborious and was motivated by their [[Christian faith]] and concern for [[social justice]] and fairness for all human beings. Their most famous member was [[William Wilberforce]], widely commemorated in monuments and credited with hastening the end of the slave trade.

Electoral and other political rights were a main cause of all [[Radicals (UK)|Radicals]] then their Northern successors the [[Chartism|Chartists]], their shared earliest success being the [[Great Reform Act 1832]]. Many of the other key rights saw a comparative context in treatises of the [[Age of Enlightenment]], and [[Age of Revolutions]]. France's 1789 [[Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen]], together with the 1689 [[English Bill of Rights]], the 1776 [[United States Declaration of Independence]], and the 1789 [[United States Bill of Rights]], inspired, in large part, the 1948 [[United Nations]] [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]].<ref>Douglas K. Stevenson (1987), ''American Life and Institutions'', Stuttgart (Germany), p. 34</ref>

==Campaigns and successes==
[[File:A view of Freetown, 1803.jpg|thumb|300px|[[Freetown]], the capital of Sierra Leone, in 1803]]
The name stems from most of its figures being non-dissenting parishioners of [[Clapham]], then a village south of London (today part of south-west London), where Wilberforce and Thornton, its two most influential leaders, often lived and met. Liturgy, sermons and sometimes meetings at [[Holy Trinity Church, Clapham|Holy Trinity Church]] on [[Clapham Common]] were a central feature, largely neighboured by upmarket new homes and expensive single-home plots of land (fashionable villas in the terms of the time).

[[Henry Venn (Clapham Sect)|Henry Venn]], since seen as the founder, was lesser clergy, Curate, there (from at least 1754) and his son John became rector (parish priest) (1792&ndash;1813). The House of Commons politicians (MPs) [[William Wilberforce]] (first elected 1780) and [[Henry Thornton (reformer)|Henry Thornton]] (first elected 1782), two of the most influential of the sect were parishioners and many of the meetings were held in their houses. They were encouraged by [[Beilby Porteus]], the [[Bishop of London]], himself an [[abolitionism|abolitionist]] and reformer, who sympathised with many of their aims.  The term "Clapham Sect" is an almost non-contemporaneous invention by [[James Stephen (civil servant)|James Stephen]] in an article of 1844 which celebrated and romanticised the work of these reformers.<ref>Gathro, John [http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/471 "William Wilberforce and His Circle of Friends"], ''CS Lewis Institute''. Retrieved 31 August 2016</ref>

The reformers included members from [[St Edmund Hall, Oxford]] and [[Magdalene College, Cambridge]], where the Vicar of [[Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge|Holy Trinity Church]], [[Charles Simeon]] had preached to students from the [[Cambridge University|university]], some of whom underwent an evangelical [[Conversion to Christianity|conversion]] experience and later became associated with the Clapham Sect.

Lampooned in their day as "the saints", the group published a journal, the ''[[Christian Observer]]'', edited by [[Zachary Macaulay]] and were also credited with the foundation of several [[missionary]] and tract societies, including the [[British and Foreign Bible Society]] and the [[Church Missionary Society]].

After many decades of work both in British society and in [[British Parliament|Parliament]], the reformers saw their efforts rewarded with the final passage of the [[Slave Trade Act 1807]], banning the trade throughout the [[British Empire]] and, after many further years of campaigning, the total emancipation of British slaves with the passing of the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]]. They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to work towards [[Abolitionism|abolishing]] [[slavery]] throughout the world.

Some of the group, [[Granville Sharp]], [[Thomas Clarkson]] and William Wilberforce, were responsible for the founding in 1787 of [[Sierra Leone]] as a settlement for some of the African-Americans freed by the British during the [[American Revolutionary War]]; it thus became the first non trading-post [[Crown colony|British "colony"]] akin to a fledgling mission state in Africa, whose purpose in Clarkson's words was "the abolition of the slave trade, the civilisation of Africa, and the introduction of the gospel there".<ref name=tom/>{{rp|11}} Later, in 1792, another of the group [[John Clarkson (abolitionist)|John Clarkson]] was instrumental in the creation of its capital [[Freetown]].

The group are described by the historian Stephen Tomkins as "a network of friends and families in England, with [[William Wilberforce]] as its centre of gravity, who were powerfully bound together by their shared moral and spiritual values, by their religious mission and social activism, by their love for each other, and by marriage".<ref name=tom>Tomkins, (2010) ''The Clapham Sect: How Wilberforce’s circle changed Britain'',</ref>

By 1848 when [[evangelicalism|evangelical]] bishop [[John Bird Sumner]] became [[Archbishop of Canterbury]], it is said that between a quarter and a third of Anglican clergy were linked to the movement, which by then had diversified greatly in its goals, although they were no longer considered an organised faction.<ref>Boyd Hilton, ''A Mad, Bad, Dangerous People? England 1783–1846'' (2006), p 175.</ref>

Members of the group founded or were involved with a number of other societies, including  the Abolition Society, formally known as the [[Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade]] (founded by Clarkson, Sharp and others)<ref>{{cite web | title=The role of the Clapham Sect in the fight for the abolition of slavery | website=Art UK | date=10 August 2020 | url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/the-role-of-the-clapham-sect-in-the-fight-for-the-abolition-of-slavery# | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref> and run largely by white middle-class women<ref>{{cite web | title='Am I Not a Woman and a Sister?' | website=The National Archives | url=https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/abolition.htm | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref> of [[Quaker]], [[Unitarianism|Unitarian]] and Evangelical faiths<ref>{{cite web | title=History – British History in depth: Women: From Abolition to the Vote | website=BBC | date=23 January 2007 | url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/abolition/abolition_women_article_01.shtml | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref>
The  [[Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions]] followed, in 1823, and there was also the [[Proclamation Society]],<ref name="Scotland">{{cite web | last=Scotland | first=Nigel | title=The social work of the Clapham Sect: an assessment | website=The Gospel Coalition | date=29 January 2020 | url=https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/themelios/article/the-social-work-of-the-clapham-sect-an-assessment/ | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=History – William Wilberforce | website=BBC | date=7 November 2006 | url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilberforce_william.shtml | access-date=20 December 2020}}</ref> the [[Sunday School Society]], the [[Bettering Society]],<ref>{{cite journal|date=2001|journal=Knowing & Doing|url=https://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/471|publisher=[[C. S. Lewis Institute]]|title=William Wilberforce and His Circle of Friends|first= Richard |last=Gathro|quote=...originally appeared in the Summer 2001 issue of the C. S. Lewis Institute Report.}}</ref> and the [[Small Debt Society]].<ref name="Scotland"/>

The Clapham Sect have been credited with playing a significant part in the development of [[Victorian morality]], through their writings, their societies, their influence in Parliament, and their example in philanthropy and moral campaigns, especially against slavery. In the words of Tomkins, "The ethos of Clapham became the spirit of the age."<ref name=tom/>{{rp|248}}

==Members==
Members of the Clapham Sect, and those associated with them, included:<ref>David Spring,  "The Clapham Sect: Some Social and Political Aspects." Victorian Studies 5#1 (1961): 35–48.</ref>

* [[Thomas Fowell Buxton]] (1786–1845), leader of the movement for the abolition of slavery, MP for [[Weymouth and Melcombe Regis (UK Parliament constituency)|Weymouth and Melcombe Regis]] and brewer
* [[William Dealtry]] (1775–1847), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, [[Clapham]], mathematician
* [[Edward James Eliot]] (1758–97), MP for [[St Germans (UK Parliament constituency)|St Germans]] and [[Liskeard (UK Parliament constituency)|Liskeard]]
* Samuel Gardiner (1755-1827) and his wife Mary Boddam  of Coombe Lodge, [[Whitchurch-on-Thames]]
* [[Thomas Gisborne]] (1758–1846), [[Prebendary]] of [[Durham Cathedral]] and author
* [[Charles Grant (British East India Company)|Charles Grant]] (1746–1823), [[Administrator of the government|administrator]], chairman of the directors of the [[British East India Company]], father of the first [[Lord Glenelg]]
* [[Zachary Macaulay]] (1768–1838), estate manager, [[governor]] of [[Sierra Leone]], father of [[Thomas Babington Macaulay, 1st Baron Macaulay|Thomas Babington Macaulay]]
* [[Hannah More]] (1745–1833), [[bluestocking]], playwright, religious writer and philanthropist
* [[Granville Sharp]] (1735–1813), campaigner for social justice, scholar and administrator
* [[Charles Simeon]] (1759–1836), Anglican cleric, minister of [[Holy Trinity Church, Cambridge]], promoter of [[Christian mission|missions]]
* [[William Smith (abolitionist)|William Smith]] (1756–1835), MP for [[Sudbury (UK Parliament constituency)|Sudbury]] and [[Norwich (UK Parliament constituency)|Norwich]]
* [[James Stephen (British politician)|James Stephen]] (1758–1832), [[Master (judiciary)|Master]] of [[Court of Chancery|Chancery]], great-grandfather of [[Virginia Woolf]]
* [[John Shore, 1st Baron Teignmouth|Lord Teignmouth]] (1751–1834), [[Governor-general]] of [[India]]
* [[John Thornton (philanthropist)|John Thornton]] (1720-1790), prominent Clapham resident, philanthropist and founder member of the group
* [[Henry Thornton (abolitionist)|Henry Thornton]] (1760–1815), economist, banker, philanthropist, [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|Member of Parliament]] (MP) for [[Southwark (UK Parliament constituency)|Southwark]], son of [[John Thornton (philanthropist)|John Thornton]] and great-grandfather of writer [[E.M. Forster]]
* [[Marianne Thornton]] (1797-1887), daughter of [[Henry Thornton (reformer)|Henry Thornton]]
* [[Henry Venn (Clapham Sect)|Henry Venn]] (1725–97), curate of Holy Trinity Church, [[Clapham]], and founder of the group, father of [[John Venn (priest)]] and great-grandfather of [[John Venn]] (originator of the [[Venn diagram]])
* [[John Venn (priest)|John Venn]] (1759–1813), Rector of Holy Trinity Church, Clapham
* [[William Wilberforce]] (1759–1833), [[Member of Parliament (United Kingdom)|MP]] for [[Kingston upon Hull (UK Parliament constituency)|Kingston upon Hull]], [[Yorkshire (UK Parliament constituency)|Yorkshire]] and [[Bramber (UK Parliament constituency)|Bramber]], [[abolitionist]], and leader of the campaign against the [[History of slavery|slave trade]]

==See also==
{{Portal inline|Christianity}}
* [[List of abolitionist forerunners]]
* [[Testonites]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
* Brown, Ford K. ''Fathers of the Victorians: The Age of Wilberforce'' (1961).
* Burton, Ann M. "British Evangelicals, Economic Warfare and the Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1794–1810." ''Anglican and Episcopal History'' 65#2 (1996): 197–225. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/42611776 in JSTOR]
*Butler, Ryan J. "Transatlantic Discontinuity? The Clapham Sect's Influence in the United States." Church history 88, no. 3 (2019): 672–695.
* Cowper, William. "'The Better Hour Is Near': Wilberforce And Transformative Religion." (Evangelical History Association Lecture 2013) [https://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:d0N16AD0Mb8J:scholar.google.com/+clapham&hl=en&as_sdt=5,27&sciodt=1,27 online]
* Danker, Ryan Nicholas. ''Wesley and the Anglicans: Political Division in Early Evangelicalism'' (InterVarsity Press, 2016).
* Hennell, Michael. ''John Venn and the Clapham Sect'' (1958).
* Hilton, Boyd. ''The Age of Atonement: The Influence of Evangelicalism on Social and Economic Thought, 1795-‐1865'' (1988).
* Hilton, Boyd. ''A Mad, Bad, Dangerous People? England 1783–1846'' (2006), pp 174–88, passim.
* Himmelfarb, Gertrude. "From Clapham to Bloomsbury: A Genealogy of Morals." ''Commentary'' 79.2 (1985): 36.
* Howse, Ernest Marshall. ''Saints in Politics: The 'Clapham Sect' and the Growth of Freedom'' (University of Toronto Press, 1952)
* Klein, Milton M. ''Amazing Grace: John Thornton & the Clapham Sect'' (2004),  160 pp.
* {{cite book|last=Major|first=Andrea|title=Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772–1843|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Qq-GuJKf35wC|year=2012|publisher=Liverpool University Press|isbn=978-1-84631-758-3}}
* Spring, David. "The Clapham Sect: Some Social and Political Aspects." ''Victorian Studies'' 5#1 (1961): 35–48. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3825306 in JSTOR]
* Tomkins, Stephen. ''The Clapham Sect: How Wilberforce's Circle Changed Britain'' (Oxford: Lion Hudson,  2010)
* Tomkins, Stephen. ''William Wilberforce: A Biography'' (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2007).
* Ward, William Reginald. ''The Protestant Evangelical Awakening'' (Cambridge University Press, 2002).
* Wolffe, John/ "Clapham Sect (act. 1792–1815)", ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' 2005; online edn, Oct 2016 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/42140, accessed 13 Nov 2017]

== External links ==
* [http://www.christianity.com/church/church-history/timeline/1701-1800/the-clapham-group-11630311.html The Clapham Group – 1701–1800 – Church History Timeline]
* [http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/William_Wilberforce_FullArticle William Wilberforce (1759–1833): The Shrimp Who Stopped Slavery by Christopher D. Hancock]
* [https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2010/aug/02/wilberforce-condoned-slavery-files-claim William Wilberforce 'condoned slavery', Colonial Office papers reveal – The Guardian – Davies, Caroline. Monday 2 August 2010.]
* [http://www.economist.com/node/16886035 Do-gooders in 1790s London – The Economist – Aug 26th 2010]

{{authority control}}

[[Category:Clapham Sect| ]]
[[Category:History of the Church of England]]
[[Category:Church of England societies and organisations]]
[[Category:19th-century disestablishments in England]]
[[Category:English theologians]]
[[Category:Abolitionist organizations]]
[[Category:Evangelical Anglicanism]]
[[Category:Anglican organizations established in the 18th century]]
[[Category:19th-century Protestantism]]
[[Category:18th-century Protestantism]]
[[Category:Clapham]]
[[Category:History of the London Borough of Lambeth]]