Clarkson Monument on High Cross Hill

Details

45/2/1
24-JAN-1967

THUNDRIDGE
CAMBRIDGE ROAD
WADESMILL
(West side)
CLARKSON MONUMENT ON HIGH CROSS HILL
HIGH STREET
WADESMILL
(West side)
CLARKSON MONUMENT ON HIGH CROSS HILL

II

Commemorative monument, standing on the west side of Cambridge Road. Erected 9 October 1879 for Arthur Giles Puller of Youngsbury. The monument lies on the west side of High Cross Hill. White freestone. A tall obelisk with chamfered arrises raised on a square inscribed pedestal with chamfered plinth and capping. Overall, this original portion of the monument stands about 2 metres high.

The front of the pedestal is inscribed with the words: 'On the spot / where stands this monument, / in the month of June, / 1785, / Thomas Clarkson / resolved / to devote his life / to bringing about the / abolition / of the slave / trade.'

The monument was restored in the 1950s by members of US Air Force stationed nearby. In June 1972 the monument was moved 9 yards NW in road widening. A major project of restoration has just been completed (November 2007). This work has included the replacement of the square stone plinth on which the obelisk and pedestal originally stood (the plinth has been given a new inscription), and setting the monument on a paved terrace with a seat, surrounded by a stepped stone wall.

HISTORY: Thomas Clarkson (1760-1846) was born at Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, the son of a curate and grammar school headmaster; Clarkson's intention was to follow his father into the church. At Cambridge, in 1785, Clarkson wrote the winning Latin prize essay for which the set topic was 'Anne liceat invitos in servitutem dare' ('Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting?'). Research into the Atlantic slave trade left him appalled, in June 1785, when he was riding from Cambridge to London to embark on his career, he dismounted on the hill above Wadesmill and 'sat down disconsolate on the turf by the roadside and held my horse. Here a thought came into my mind, that if the contents of the Essay were true, it was time some person should see these calamities to their end.' William Wordsworth's poem, 'To Thomas Clarkson' celebrates this moment when 'the constant Voice ...Which, out of thy young heart's oracular seat, / First roused thee.' And it is this moment, of pivotal importance for the history of the British abolition movement, that the Clarkson Monument commemorates.

Clarkson's first act was to translate and publish his essay, which proved hugely influential. In 1787 he joined with Granville Sharp and others to form the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and in the same year, Clarkson was instrumental in persuading William Wilberforce to represent the cause in Parliament. Clarkson undertook to travel the country raising support, and seeking out evidence about the slave trade to put before parliament. This he did, visiting slave ports great and small, inspecting slave ships, and talking to seamen, doctors, slave captains and merchants. He became a celebrated national figure, but also made bitter enemies. In 1788, Parliament appointed a Select Committee to examine the slave trade, for which Clarkson organised witnesses and material evidence, including the horrific diagram of the arrangement of slaves below decks on the ship named the Brookes. During the 1790s, his health at risk, Clarkson went into temporary retirement from the campaign, moving first to Ullswater, and then to Bury St Edmunds; he married in 1796. But in 1804 he re-joined the fight with vigour, collecting new evidence and putting pressure on sympathetic MPs. On 25 March 1807 the abolition bill at last received royal assent. In the following years, Clarkson was active in campaigning for the abolition of slavery itself; in 1823 he was one of the founding members of the Anti-Slavery Society. The emancipation act having been passed in 1833, Clarkson helped bring about the end of enforced apprenticeship of former slaves in the West Indies. Clarkson died at his home, Playford Hall in Suffolk (q.v.), on 26 Septmeber 1846, and was buried at St Mary's Church, Playford.

The monument at High Cross was erected by Arthur Giles Puller of Youngsbury, who owned the land on which it is situated. Thomas Clarkson, in his later years, had taken Charles Merivale, then a boy, but later Dean of Ely and an historian, to High Cross and shown him the place at which he had taken his resolution. It was Merivale that informed Mr Giles Puller of the significance of the spot. In his dedication speech, on 9 October 1879, Giles Puller, who counted slave-owners amongst his ancestors, mentioned that he had recently visited America and been touched by the plight of former slaves there, a fact which contributed to his wish to honour Thomas Clarkson.

In addition to the obelisk at High Cross Hill, there are two memorials to Thomas Clarkson at St Mary's, Playford, one of which is listed; there is one at Wisbech (q.v.); and in 1996, to mark his sequicentenary, a tablet was placed in Westminster Abbey close to the Wilberforce tomb.

SOURCES: Hertfordshire Mercury, 11 October 1879; Kelly's Directory (1914) p. 249; N. Pevsner and B. Cherry, The Buildings of England, Hertfordshire (1953, 1957), p. 365; Dictionary of National Biography; Notes and Queries, series 11, vol XII (1915) p. 337


REASONS FOR DESIGNATION
The Clarkson Monument is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* It is a diginified monument in the form of an obelisk
* It is of particular historical interest, having been erected to commemorate Thomas Clarkson, one of the foremost figures of the abolition of slavery movement, and to mark the spot where Clarkson resolved to work towards the end of slavery in Britain. This amendment is written in 2007, the bicentenary year of the 1807 Abolition Act.

Listing NGR: TL3598617813

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

356007

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977), 365
Hertfordshire Mercury in 11 October, (1879), 3
Kellys Directory in Hertfordshire, (1914), 365

End of official list entry

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