The scope of the historian is potentially everything which has gone before. If the scholar has any chance of recounting, or even understanding a fragment of the past, they must be selective in the remit of their research. Perhaps a tendency to create silos is inherent in the discipline in order for the past to become manageable. Gloria Steinem has commented on the media’s pre-occupation during the sixties with labelling activists as either civil rights or feminist campaigners even though many were both. The women saw a commitment to both causes as part of the same struggle. Often lives can be intertwined but their historical reputations are viewed through the prism of different lenses.
I am thinking of African-born former slave, Olaudah Equiano (aka Gustavus Vassa), and Thomas Hardy, the Scottish shoemaker who lodged in the same house at Piccadilly, London during 1791. For those who digest their history from the big screen rather than books, Equiano was played by Youssou N’dour opposite Rufus Sewell’s Thomas Clarkson in the film “Amazing Grace”. Both were supporting actors to Ioan Gruddudd who took the lead as William Wilberforce. Wilberforce, the voice of the anti-slavery movement in parliament, is probably the name most widely recognised today as a campaigner against the trade. Equiano and Clarkson were the activists on the ground, traveling the British Isles to gain support from ordinary men and women for abolition.
Youssou N’Dour and Rufus Sewell as Equiano and Clarkson in the film ‘Amazing Grace’.
Although the name of the Tory MP is widely associated with the anti slavery movement I do not recall any black campaigners being mentioned, nor the role of slave rebellions which contributed to the ending of the trade and ultimately the institution in British colonies.
In 1792 Thomas Hardy founded the London Corresponding Society which agitated for the democratic reform of parliament. Hardy’s Society was an established part of my grammar school syllabus, as was the contribution of founding member Francis Place. Equiano was an early founding member of the Society, too, but his role in eighteenth century politics is usually assigned exclusively to the anti-slavery movement and his involvement with advocating for British democracy is overlooked. Hardy is singularly associated with the struggle for parliamentary reform rather than abolition.
One activist rarely mentioned in either struggle is Lydia Hardy, the Chesney-born wife of Thomas Hardy and mother of his six children. She was a leader in the campaign for the abstention of slave-grown sugar and was also lodging in the Piccadilly household with her husband and Equiano. As far as I am aware there has been no attempt to bring Lydia’s story to the big screen although her life was very dramatic and tragic. Perhaps, arguably, Equiano is today acknowledged as a black abolitionist in Britain, but he was not alone. He was one of a group known as the Sons of Africa who used to correspond with the London papers to advocate on behalf of the enslaved.
