51-618: 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 (and dominant) Church of England , which was highly interwoven with offices of state. 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
102-566: A Service of Thanksgiving for his recovery was held in St Paul's Cathedral , at which Porteus himself preached. The war against Napoleon began in 1794 and was to drag on for another 20 years. Porteus' tenure as Bishop of London saw not only services of thanksgiving for British victories at the Battles of Cape St. Vincent , the Nile and Copenhagen , but the great national outpouring of sorrow at
153-442: 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 , since seen as the founder, was lesser clergy, Curate, there (from at least 1754) and his son John became rector (parish priest) (1792–1813). The House of Commons politicians (MPs) William Wilberforce (first elected 1780) and Henry Thornton (first elected 1782), two of
204-570: A huge challenge to the church, resulting in vast pressure upon the parish resources. He continued to take a deep interest in the plight of West Indian slaves , preaching and campaigning actively against the slave trade and taking part in many debates in the House of Lords , becoming known as a noted abolitionist. He took a particular interest in the affairs of the Society for the Propagation of
255-466: A new font was installed, and one of its early christenings was the infant E. M. Forster . Forster was a descendant of the Thornton family and wrote a biography of his great-aunt Marianne Thornton , from whom he had inherited a substantial amount of money. In 1902-03, Arthur Beresford Pite was commissioned to design the present chancel , as well as vestries and a Lady Chapel . The present organ
306-544: A priest in 1757, and in 1762 was appointed as domestic chaplain to Thomas Secker , Archbishop of Canterbury , acting as his personal assistant at Lambeth Palace for six years. It was during these years that it is thought he became more aware of the conditions of the enslaved Africans in the American colonies and the British West Indies . He corresponded with clergy and missionaries , receiving reports on
357-470: A result of the economic difficulties in the province and for the sake of his father's health. Educated briefly at St Peter's School, York and later at Ripon Grammar School , he was a classics scholar at Christ's College , Cambridge , becoming a fellow in 1752. In 1759 he won the Seatonian Prize for his poem Death: A Poetical Essay , a work for which he is still remembered. He was ordained as
408-515: A short pamphlet designed to counter the arguments of Paine, the first in a whole series of popular tracts designed to oppose what they saw as the prevailing immorality of the day. During much of the following 20 years – a time of national and international political upheaval, Porteus was in a position to influence opinion in the influential circles of the Court , the government , the City of London and
459-637: A system of daily devotions using the Porteusian Bible , published after his death, highlighting the most important and useful passages; and was responsible for the new innovation of the use of tracts by church organisations. Always a Church of England man, Porteus was, however, happy to work with Methodists and dissenters and recognised their major contributions in evangelism and education. In 1788, George III had again lapsed into one of his periods of mental derangement (now diagnosed as manic depression ) to national concern. The following year,
510-543: Is customary, he was also appointed to the Privy Council , and Dean of the Chapel Royal . In 1788, he supported Sir William Dolben 's Slave Trade Bill from the bench of bishops, and over the next quarter century he became the leading advocate within the Church of England for the abolition of slavery, lending support to such men as Wilberforce, Granville Sharp , Henry Thornton and Zachary Macaulay to secure
561-546: Is ironic that Porteus' most lasting contribution was one for which he is little-known, the Sunday Observance Act of 1781 (a response to what he saw as the moral decay of England), which legislated the ways in which the public were allowed to spend their recreation time at weekends for the following 200 years, until the passage of the Sunday Trading Act of 1994 . His legacy lives on, though, in
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#1732756927933612-470: Is located on the north side of Clapham Common and is a Grade II* listed building. Plans for the construction of a new church in Clapham had dated from 1753. The then medieval church had been deemed too small for a growing population and was in a poor state of repair. It was also felt that a new location would be more convenient for the well-to-do parishioners, mostly bankers and merchants who inhabited
663-734: 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. 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) and run largely by white middle-class women of Quaker , Unitarian and Evangelical faiths The Society for
714-774: The British and Foreign Bible Society and the Church Missionary Society . After many decades of work both in British society and in 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
765-606: The Lord's Day . He enlisted the support of his friend Hannah More , former dramatist and bluestocking , to write tracts against the wickedness of the immorality and licentious behaviour which were common at these events. He vigorously opposed the spread of the principles of the French Revolution as well as what he regarded as the ungodly and dangerous doctrines of Thomas Paine 's The Age of Reason . In 1793, at Porteus' suggestion, Hannah More published Village Politics ,
816-583: The Office of Works . He was contracted to design and build at the cost of £5,000, a building in grey stock brick with Portland stone trimmings, a slate roof and a belfry topped with a small lead dome and a gilded vane . The clock was supplied by Aynsth Thwaites . The new church was consecrated on 1 June 1776 by the Bishop of Ely . In 1792, the Reverend John Venn became rector following
867-689: The Plymouth Brethren ) moved away from Anglicanism, and the Christian social reformers who succeeded the Claphamites from about the 1830s often exemplified Nonconformist conscience and identified with groups functioning outside the established Anglican Church. These were reformists and abolitionists, being contemporary terms as the 'Sect' was – until 1844 – unnamed. They figured and heard readings, sermons and lessons from prominent and wealthy Evangelical Anglicans who called for
918-526: The Slavery Abolition Act . In 1986 a Restoration and Development Trust Fund was set up to combat ongoing repairs and restoration for the future. The church remains today a central part of the local community. 51°27′45″N 0°08′32″W / 51.4625°N 0.1421°W / 51.4625; -0.1421 Beilby Porteus Beilby Porteus (or Porteous ; 8 May 1731 – 13 May 1809), successively Bishop of Chester and of London ,
969-576: The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 . They also campaigned vigorously for Britain to use its influence to work towards 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
1020-446: The liberation of slaves , abolition of the slave trade and the 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
1071-661: The Archbishop of Canterbury and the Crown) from 1767 to 1777, and later Master of St Cross , Winchester (1776–77). He was concerned about trends within the Church of England towards what he regarded as the watering-down of the truth of Scripture and stood for doctrinal purity and opposed the anti-subscription movement, composed of theologians and scholars who, as he saw it, would have watered down cardinal Christian doctrines and beliefs and were also in favour of allowing clergy
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#17327569279331122-526: The British West Indian colonies . Porteus made a huge contribution and eventually turned to other means of achieving his aims, including writing, encouraging political initiatives, and supporting the sending of mission workers to Barbados and Jamaica . Deeply concerned about the lot of the slaves as a result of the reports he received, Porteus became a committed and passionate abolitionist, the most senior cleric of his day to take an active part in
1173-722: The Gospel in Foreign Parts , especially regarding the Church of England's role in the administration of the Codrington Plantations in Barbados , where around 300 slaves were owned by the Society. Renowned as a scholar and a popular preacher, it was in 1783 that the young bishop was to first come to national attention by preaching his most famous and influential sermon . Porteus used the opportunity afforded by
1224-967: The Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions followed, in 1823, and there was also the Proclamation Society , the Sunday School Society , the Bettering Society , and the Small Debt Society . 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
1275-811: The Negroe Slaves in the British West-India Islands Recommended and was preached at the church of St Mary-le-Bow before forty members of the society, including eleven bishops of the Church of England. When this largely fell upon deaf ears, Porteus next began work on his Plan for the Effectual Conversion of the Slaves of the Codrington Estate , which he presented to the SPG committee in 1784 and, when it
1326-719: 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 . 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 on Clapham Common were
1377-621: The Vicar of Holy Trinity Church , Charles Simeon had preached to students from the university , some of whom underwent an evangelical 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
1428-435: The abolition of the slave trade was brought before the British parliament time and time again over 18 years from 1789, Porteus campaigned vigorously and energetically supported the campaign from within the Church of England and the bench of bishops in the House of Lords . In 1787, Porteus was translated to the bishopric of London on the advice of Prime Minister William Pitt , a position he held until his death in 1809. As
1479-661: The appalling conditions facing the slaves from Revd James Ramsay in the West Indies and from Granville Sharp , the English lawyer who had supported the cases of freed slaves in England. In 1769 Beilby Porteus was appointed as chaplain to King George III . He is listed as one of the lenten preachers at the Chapel Royal, Whitehall in 1771, 1773 and 1774. He was also Rector of Lambeth (a living shared between
1530-520: The campaign against slavery. He became involved with the group of abolitionists at Teston in Kent, led by Sir Charles Middleton , and soon became acquainted with William Wilberforce , Thomas Clarkson , Henry Thornton , Zachary Macaulay and other committed activists. Many of this group were members of the so-called Clapham Sect of evangelical social reformers and Porteus willingly lent his support to them and their campaigns. As Wilberforce's bill for
1581-541: The death of Nelson in 1805, and his state funeral service in St Paul's Cathedral in 1806. As Bishop of London, Porteus may have officiated at some of these services, although it is unlikely that he did so at Nelson's funeral, because of the Admiral's reputation as an adulterer. After a gradual decline in his health over the previous three years, Bishop Porteus died at Fulham Palace in 1809 and, according to his wishes,
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1632-458: The death of James Stonhouse. He was the son of Henry Venn who had been curate of the parish some thirty years previously. With his local connections and popular sermons , Venn succeeded not only in drawing more people to worship at Holy Trinity but to make the church the nucleus of a radical movement that was taking hold in the 1790s. As a committed abolitionist Venn formed part of a group of (mostly) evangelical Christians who sought an end to
1683-511: The early 19th century as those of Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson – but a 100 years later he had become one of the 'forgotten abolitionists', and today his role has largely been ignored and his name has been consigned to the footnotes of history. His primary claim to fame in the 21st century is for his poem on Death and, possibly unfairly, as the supposed prototype for the pompous Mr Collins in Jane Austen 's Pride and Prejudice . But it
1734-418: The end of his life personally funded the sending of scriptures in the language of many peoples as far apart as Greenland and India. A man of strong moral principle, Porteus was also passionately concerned about what he saw as the moral decay in the nation during the 18th century, and campaigned against trends which he saw as contributory factors, such as pleasure gardens , theatres and the non-observance of
1785-501: The eventual passage of the Slave Trade Act in 1807. In view of his passionate involvement in the anti-slavery movement and his friendship with other leading abolitionists, it was especially appropriate that, as Bishop of London, he should now find himself with official responsibility for the spiritual welfare of the British colonies overseas. He was responsible for missions to the West Indies , as well as to India , and towards
1836-886: The first non trading-post 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". Later, in 1792, another of the group 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". By 1848 when evangelical bishop John Bird Sumner became Archbishop of Canterbury , it
1887-487: The highest echelons of Georgian society. Porteus did this, partly by encouraging debate on subjects as diverse as the slave trade, Catholic emancipation , the pay and conditions of low-paid clergy, the perceived excesses of entertainment taking place on Sundays—and by becoming a vocal supporter of William Wilberforce, Hannah More and the Clapham Sect of evangelical social reformers. He was also appointed as one of
1938-478: The invitation to preach the 1783 Anniversary Sermon of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts to criticise the Church of England's role in ignoring the plight of the 350 slaves on its Codrington Plantations in Barbados and to recommend means by which the lot of slaves there could be improved. It was an impassioned and well-reasoned plea for The Civilisation, Improvement and Conversion of
1989-530: The mansions surrounding the Common itself. Building on this newly chosen site however required an Act of Parliament . A meeting was convened at the Plough Inn between Sir Fletcher Norton , then Speaker , the absentee Rector James Stonhouse , his resident curate Moses Porter and the treasurer , banker and formidable local resident John Thornton . The committee chose for their architect Kenton Couse of
2040-475: The members of the Board for Encouragement of Agriculture and internal Improvement in 1793. He was active in the establishment of Sunday Schools in every parish, an early patron of the Church Missionary Society and one of the founder members of the British and Foreign Bible Society , of which he became vice-president. He was a well-known and passionate advocate of personal Bible-reading and even gave his name to
2091-541: 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 abolitionist and reformer, who sympathised with many of their aims. The term "Clapham Sect" is an almost non-contemporaneous invention by James Stephen in an article of 1844 which celebrated and romanticised the work of these reformers. The reformers were partly composed of members from St Edmund Hall, Oxford and Magdalene College, Cambridge , where
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2142-554: The option of subscribing to the Thirty-Nine Articles . At the same time he was prepared to suggest a compromise of a revision to some of the Articles. Always a Church of England man, he was, however, happy to work with Methodists and dissenters and recognised their major contributions in evangelism and education. He was married to Margaret Hodgson. There is no record of them having any children. In 1776, Porteus
2193-453: The practice of slavery. This group became known as the Clapham Sect and after the death of John Thornton in 1790, his son Henry Thornton continued the group's work, which included the regular association with senior abolition figures like William Wilberforce and Granville Sharp who would come to worship at Holy Trinity. The portico of the church was built in 1812 to shelter wealthier parishioners alighting from their carriages. In 1875
2244-461: The rectorship there of John Venn (in office: 1792-1813) and came to engage in systematically advocating social reform. In the course of time the growth of evangelical Christian revivalism in England and the movement for Catholic emancipation fed into a waning of the old precept that every Englishman automatically counted as an Anglican. Some new Christian groups (such as the Methodists and
2295-458: The words of Tomkins, "The ethos of Clapham became the spirit of the age." Members of the Clapham Sect, and those associated with them, included: [REDACTED] Christianity portal Holy Trinity Clapham The Holy Trinity Church is an Anglican church located in Clapham , London . Completed in 1776, it was the base for the so-called Clapham Sect who worshipped there. It
2346-628: 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 then their Northern successors the 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
2397-510: Was a Church of England reformer and a leading abolitionist in England. He was the first Anglican in a position of authority to seriously challenge the Church's position on slavery . Porteus was born in York on 8 May 1731, the youngest of the 19 children of Elizabeth Jennings and Robert Porteus ( d . 1758/9), a planter. Although the family was of Scottish ancestry, his parents were Virginian planters who had returned to England in 1720 as
2448-405: Was buried at St Mary's church, Sundridge in Kent – a stone's throw from his country retreat in the village – a place to which he had loved to retire every autumn. Beilby Porteus was one of the most significant, albeit under-rated church figures of the 18th century. His sermons continued to be read by many, and his legacy as a foremost abolitionist was such that his name was almost as well known in
2499-467: Was installed in 1909 by Hunter of Clapham High Street. The church was badly damaged during air raids in the Second World War but restorations were mostly completed by 1952. Numerous tributes to the Clapham Sect exist within the church including a tablet designed by John Shore, Lord Teignmouth , a stained glass window , and a blue plaque which was erected in 1983 on the 150th anniversary of
2550-513: Was nominated as Bishop of Chester , taking up the appointment in 1777. He lost no time in getting to grips with the problems of a diocese which had a vastly growing population within the many new centres of the Industrial Revolution , most of which were in the north-west of England, but where there were the fewest parishes. The appalling poverty and deprivation amongst the immigrant workers in new manufacturing industries represented
2601-439: Was turned down, again in 1789. His dismay at the rejection of his plan by the other bishops is palpable. His diary entry for the day reveals his moral outrage at the decision and at what he saw as the apparent complacency of the bishops and the committee of the society at its responsibility for the welfare of its own slaves. These were the first challenges to the establishment in an eventual 26-year campaign to eradicate slavery in
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