The Testonites were an influential group of English
abolitionists active in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
The group of activists is named after
Teston, Kent
Teston /ˈtiːstən/ The Place Names of Kent,Judith Glover,1976,Batsford. or /ˈtiːsən/ BBC Pronouncing Dictionary of British Names — is a village in the Maidstone District of Kent, England. It is located on the A26 road out of Maids ...
, where they began to meet at
Barham Court
Barham Court is an English country house in the village of Teston, Kent.
History
It was once the home of Reginald Fitz Urse, one of the knights who murdered Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral
Canterbury Cathedral in Canterbury, Kent, ...
, home of
Charles Middleton, 1st Baron Barham in the early 1780s. The informal group came together soon after
James Ramsay, a former naval officer, who chose to take
holy orders and work on the
Caribbean island of
St Christopher
Saint Christopher ( el, Ἅγιος Χριστόφορος, ''Ágios Christóphoros'') is venerated by several Christian denominations as a martyr killed in the reign of the 3rd-century Roman emperor Decius (reigned 249–251) or alternatively u ...
(now
St Kitts), returned to England in 1781.
In the
West Indies
The West Indies is a subregion of North America, surrounded by the North Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea that includes 13 independent island countries and 18 dependencies and other territories in three major archipelagos: the Great ...
, Ramsay saw the suffering of
slaves and was shocked at the cruelty inflicted upon the enslaved Africans and campaigned against the owners and
planters who were largely responsible. Ramsay was offered the livings of Teston and
Nettlestead, Kent
Nettlestead is a village and civil parish on the road south-west of, and part of the borough of Maidstone. The parish includes Nettlestead Green and part of Seven Mile Lane. More than 800 people live in the parish. The parish church of St Mar ...
in 1781.
Other significant campaigners who became part of the Teston circle were
Hannah More,
philanthropist
Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the Public good (economics), public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private goo ...
and writer; anti-slavery campaigner
Beilby Porteus
Beilby Porteus (or Porteous; 8 May 1731 – 13 May 1809), successively Bishop of Chester and of London, was a Church of England reformer and a leading abolitionist in England. He was the first Anglican in a position of authority to seriously ch ...
,
Bishop of Chester
The Bishop of Chester is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Chester in the Province of York.
The diocese extends across most of the historic county boundaries of Cheshire, including the Wirral Peninsula and has its see in th ...
, who also held the living of the nearby village of
Hunton, Kent and had been influenced by Ramsay's writings; as well as Middleton and his wife Margaret (née Gambier), Lady Middleton.
Their activism was instrumental in "channel
ngthe reform currents that shaped the cultural landscape in Britain",
[Brown, p. 346.] and, through the influence they exerted on such men as
Thomas Clarkson, they were indirectly responsible for the founding of the
Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade in May 1787. Clarkson had pledged his energies to a national
campaign
Campaign or The Campaign may refer to:
Types of campaigns
* Campaign, in agriculture, the period during which sugar beets are harvested and processed
* Advertising campaign, a series of advertisement messages that share a single idea and theme
* B ...
for
slave trade abolition
Abolition refers to the act of putting an end to something by law, and may refer to:
* Abolitionism, abolition of slavery
* Abolition of the death penalty, also called capital punishment
* Abolition of monarchy
*Abolition of nuclear weapons
*Abol ...
in the autumn of the previous year.
Closely associated with the group later was the young
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 bec ...
, (MP for
Kingston upon Hull
Kingston upon Hull, usually abbreviated to Hull, is a port city and unitary authorities of England, unitary authority in the East Riding of Yorkshire, England.
It lies upon the River Hull at its confluence with the Humber Estuary, inland from ...
and then
Yorkshire
Yorkshire ( ; abbreviated Yorks), formally known as the County of York, is a historic county in northern England and by far the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its large area in comparison with other English counties, functions have ...
), who first met the group during the winter of 1786–87. He later went on to steer through
Parliament
In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. ...
the legislation that finally led, almost twenty years later, to the passage of the
Slave Trade Act in 1807.
References
;Bibliography
*
*{{cite book, last=Brown, first=Christopher Leslie, title=Evangelicals and the Origins of Anti-slavery in England (in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography), url=http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/theme/96075, accessdate=15 February 2012, year=2010, publisher=Oxford University Press
External links
Parliament & The British Slave Trade 1600–1807
Abolitionism in the United Kingdom
Organizations established in the 1780s