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James Stephen (30 June 1758 – 10 October 1832) was the principal English lawyer associated with the movement for the abolition of slavery. Stephen was born in
Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counci ...
, Dorset; the family home later being removed to
Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area occupying the north-west part of the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England. It is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington the ancient parish. The ...
. He married twice and was the father of Sir James Stephen, grandfather of Sir
James Fitzjames Stephen Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, 1st Baronet, KCSI (3 March 1829 – 11 March 1894) was an English lawyer, judge, writer, and philosopher. One of the most famous critics of John Stuart Mill, Stephen achieved prominence as a philosopher, law re ...
and Sir
Leslie Stephen Sir Leslie Stephen (28 November 1832 – 22 February 1904) was an English author, critic, historian, biographer, and mountaineer, and the father of Virginia Woolf and Vanessa Bell. Life Sir Leslie Stephen came from a distinguished intellect ...
, and great-grandfather of
Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born i ...
and
Vanessa Bell Vanessa Bell (née Stephen; 30 May 1879 – 7 April 1961) was an English painter and interior designer, a member of the Bloomsbury Group and the sister of Virginia Woolf (née Stephen). Early life and education Vanessa Stephen was the el ...
.


Early life

James Stephen was born to James Stephen and Sibella Stephen (née Milner). He began his career reporting on
parliamentary A parliamentary system, or parliamentarian democracy, is a system of democratic governance of a state (or subordinate entity) where the executive derives its democratic legitimacy from its ability to command the support ("confidence") of the ...
proceedings for the ''Morning Post''. He was admitted to
Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln' ...
in 1775 and was
Called to the Bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call t ...
there in 1782. His father had earlier been a member of the
Middle Temple The Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, commonly known simply as Middle Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court exclusively entitled to call their members to the English Bar as barristers, the others being the Inner Temple, Gray's Inn an ...
but was expelled before being Called to the Bar. James also read law at Marischal College, Aberdeen, for two years but ended his studies due to a lack of money. The following year he sailed with his family to the West Indies where they would live for the next 11 years. He set up in practice as a lawyer there, becoming solicitor-general of
St. Kitts Saint Kitts, officially the Saint Christopher Island, is an island in the West Indies. The west side of the island borders the Caribbean Sea, and the eastern coast faces the Atlantic Ocean. Saint Kitts and the neighbouring island of Nevis cons ...
, at that time a British colony. During a visit to Barbados he witnessed the trial of four black slaves for murder. The trial, which found the men guilty as charged, was considered by many to be a grave
miscarriage of justice A miscarriage of justice occurs when a grossly unfair outcome occurs in a criminal or civil proceeding, such as the conviction and punishment of a person for a crime they did not commit. Miscarriages are also known as wrongful convictions. Inn ...
. The men were sentenced to
death by burning Death by burning (also known as immolation) is an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment, and many societies have employed it as a punishment ...
, and Stephens' revulsion at both the trial and the verdict led him to vow never to keep slaves himself, and to ally himself with the abolitionist movement. Stephen opposed the opening up of
Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...
through the use of
slave labour Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
when the island was ceded to the British in 1797, recommending instead that Crown land should only be granted for estates that supported the immigration of free Africans. He considered that, besides the evangelical arguments in support of freedom from slavery, internal security, particularly from potential French interests, could be obtained in the British West Indian Islands by improving the conditions of slaves. Stephen was a skilled lawyer whose speciality was the laws governing Great Britain's foreign trade. He was a defender of the
mercantilist Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal. The policy aims to reduce a ...
system of government-licensed controlled trade. In October 1805 – the same month that the British fleet under Lord Nelson defeated the French fleet – his book appeared: ''War in Disguise; or, the Frauds of the Neutral Flags''. It called for the abolition of neutral nations' carrying trade, meaning America's carrying trade, between France's Caribbean islands and Europe, including Great Britain. Stephen's arguments two years later became the basis of Great Britain's
Orders in Council An Order-in-Council is a type of legislation in many countries, especially the Commonwealth realms. In the United Kingdom this legislation is formally made in the name of the monarch by and with the advice and consent of the Privy Council (''Ki ...
, which placed restrictions on American vessels. The enforcement of this law by British warships eventually led to the
War of 1812 The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States, United States of America and its Indigenous peoples of the Americas, indigenous allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom ...
, even though the Orders were repealed in the same month that America declared war, unbeknown to the American Congress.


Abolitionism

Stephen's second marriage was to Sarah, sister of
William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...
, in 1800, and through this connection he became frequently acquainted with many of the figures in the anti-slavery movement. Several of his friendships among the abolitionists were made in
Clapham Clapham () is a suburb in south west London, England, lying mostly within the London Borough of Lambeth, but with some areas (most notably Clapham Common) extending into the neighbouring London Borough of Wandsworth. History Early history ...
(home to the
Clapham Sect The Clapham Sect, or Clapham Saints, were a group of social reformers associated with 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 ...
) where he had moved from
Sloane Square Sloane Square is a small hard-landscaped square on the boundaries of the central London districts of Belgravia and Chelsea, located southwest of Charing Cross, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. The area forms a boundary betwee ...
in 1797. Other connections were formed also in the village of
Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area occupying the north-west part of the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England. It is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington the ancient parish. The ...
a few miles north of London, where Stephen's father leased a family home from 1774 onwards called Summerhouse. The property adjoined Fleetwood House and Abney House at
Abney Park Abney Park is in Stoke Newington, London, England. It is a park dating from just before 1700, named after Lady Abney, the wife of Sir Thomas Abney, Lord Mayor of London in 1700 and one of the first directors of the Bank of England and associat ...
and stood where Summerhouse Road is built today. Close by were the residences of three prominent
Quaker Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abil ...
abolitionists: William Allen (1770–1843), Joseph Woods the elder, and
Samuel Hoare Jr Samuel Hoare Jr (9 August 1751 – 14 July 1825) was a wealthy British Quaker banker and abolitionist born in Stoke Newington, then to the north of London in the county of Middlesex. His London seat was Heath House on Hampstead Heath. He was one ...
(1751–1825). The latter two were founder members of the predecessor body to the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Anna Letitia Barbauld, author of ''An Epistle to William Wilberforce'' (1791), also came to live in Stoke Newington in 1802. Inevitably, Wilberforce also became a frequent visitor to Stoke Newington, combining meetings with William Allen and his Quaker circle with visits to his sister Sarah and brother-in-law James. Stephen came to be regarded as the chief architect of the
Slave Trade Act 1807 The Slave Trade Act 1807, officially An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom prohibiting the slave trade in the British Empire. Although it did not abolish the practice of slavery, it ...
, providing Wilberforce with the legal mastermind he needed for its drafting. To close off loopholes pointed out by some critics, he became a Director of the Africa Institution for the Registration of Slaves through which he advocated a centralised registry, administered by the British government, which would furnish precise statistics on all slave births, deaths, and sale, so that "any unregistered black would be presumed free". Though he introduced many successful ideas to strengthen the legal success of the abolitionist cause, this mechanism which he believed to be "the only effective means to prevent British colonists from illicitly importing African slaves" was never taken up. His last public engagement was a speaking engagement at a meeting of the Anti-Slavery Society at
Exeter Hall Exeter Hall was a large public meeting place on the north side of the Strand in central London, opposite where the Savoy Hotel now stands. From 1831 until 1907 Exeter Hall was the venue for many great gatherings by promoters of human bettermen ...
in 1832.


Member of Parliament

From 1808 to 1815 James Stephen became an MP, firstly for
Tralee Tralee ( ; ga, Trá Lí, ; formerly , meaning 'strand of the Lee River') is the county town of County Kerry in the south-west of Ireland. The town is on the northern side of the neck of the Dingle Peninsula, and is the largest town in Count ...
and afterwards for
East Grinstead East Grinstead is a town in West Sussex, England, near the East Sussex, Surrey, and Kent borders, south of London, northeast of Brighton, and northeast of the county town of Chichester. Situated in the extreme northeast of the county, the civ ...
and in 1811 Master in Chancery. His want of education and his fiery temper prevented him from doing justice to considerable natural powers of eloquence. In 1826 he issued ''An Address to the People and Electors of England'', in which, echoing his speeches, he had some success in urging the election of members of parliament who would not be "tools of the West India interest", paving the way for the second Abolition Bill which succeeded in 1833.


Family

Three sons from Stephen's first marriage, to Anna Stent at
St Leonard's, Shoreditch St Leonard's, Shoreditch, is the ancient parish church of Shoreditch, often known simply as Shoreditch Church. It is located at the intersection of Shoreditch High Street with Hackney Road, within the London Borough of Hackney in East London. T ...
in 1783, survived him, and achieved prominence in law, abolition and the civil service: Sir James Stephen (1789–1859),
Henry John Stephen Henry John Stephen (1787–1864) was an English legal writer and serjeant-at-law. Life Born on St Kitts in the West Indies on 18 January 1787, he was the second son of James Stephen (1758–1832); James Stephen (1789–1859) and George Stephen ...
(1787–1864), and Sir George Stephen (1794–1879). Stephen's second wife was Sarah Wilberforce (c. 1757–1816), eldest sister of
William Wilberforce William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually becom ...
(1759–1833); Barbara Wilberforce (1799–1821) was her niece and daughter of William. In 1832 Stephen died, and all three were buried at St Mary's churchyard,
Stoke Newington Stoke Newington is an area occupying the north-west part of the London Borough of Hackney in north-east London, England. It is northeast of Charing Cross. The Manor of Stoke Newington gave its name to Stoke Newington the ancient parish. The ...
, London, along with Stephen's first wife, his mother and father and two of his infant daughters. The Stephens were connected to the Australian legal dynasty of that name.


Works

*''The Crisis of the Sugar Colonies'' (1802)
''The Opportunity or Reasons for an immediate alliance with St Domingo''
(1804) *''Reasons for Establishing a Registry of Slaves'' (1815)
''A defence of the bill for the registration of slaves''
(1816) London: J. Butterworth & Son and J. Hatchard
''An Inquiry into the Right and Duty of Compelling Spain to Relinquish Her Slave Trade in Northern Africa''
(1816) *''England Enslaved by Her Own Slave Colonies: An Address to the People and Electors of England'' (1826)
Slavery of the British West Indies''
(1824)


References

*


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Stephen, James 1758 births 1832 deaths People from Poole Clapham Sect English abolitionists English lawyers Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for County Kerry constituencies (1801–1922) Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies UK MPs 1807–1812 UK MPs 1812–1818 Stephen-Bell family