On this day – 1772: Somerset heralds the end of slavery in England

Lord Mansfield

In 1771 James Somerset escaped his owner, Charles Stewart, but was recaptured and held on a vessel bound for Jamaica – to be re-enslaved.

However, his godparents challenged his imprisonment.

A reconstruction of Lord Mansfield’s judgment of 22 June 1772, states: “The state of slavery is of such a nature, that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political; but only positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasion, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory: it’s so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law.”

It adds: “Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.”

While Lord Mansfield later said the judgment only decided that a slave could not be removed from England against his will, the case nevertheless galvanised the abolition movement. The slave trade was eventually abolished under the Slave Trade Act 1807 and the practice of slavery itself in 1833, with the Slavery Abolition Act.

In 1778, the Court of Session came to the same conclusion in Knight v Wedderburn – a case that did not treat Somerset as authoritative.

Joseph Knight, who was enslaved in Africa and taken to Jamaica, brought his case to the Justice of the Peace Court in Perth in 1774 in an attempt to leave the employment of John Wedderburn of Ballendean in Perthshire. The court found in Wedderburn’s favour. However, an appeal to the Sheriff of Perth found for Knight.

Wedderburn appealed to the Court of Session, arguing slavery was to be distinguished from perpetual servitude and, that while he could not be recognised as a slave, Knight was bound by his servitude. Knight invoked Somerset as persuasive.

The Court of Session approved the sheriff’s judgment and remitted the case simpliciter, declaring: “the dominion assumed over this Negro, under the law of Jamaica, being unjust, could not be supported in this country to any extent: That, therefore, the defender had no right to the Negro’s service for any space of time, nor to send him out of the country against his consent: That the Negro was likewise protected under the act 1701, c.6. from being sent out of the country against his consent.”