In the spring of 1807, the British parliament abolished the slave trade – one of the first countries to do so – followed, 26 years later, by a further act making the purchase or ownership of enslaved peoples illegal within most parts of the British Empire.
From the early 19th century, the ‘West Africa Squadron’ of the Royal Navy patrolled the Atlantic, seizing and confiscating slave ships of other nations, liberating some 150,000 Africans – the successful culmination of an extraordinary populist anti-slavery campaign led by Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce. Unsurprisingly, antiques and objects linked to the abolitionist movement are not only of historical importance, but highly sought after by collectors and museums.
Ceramics played a large part in spreading the message of the abolitionist cause. Anti-slavery artefacts include mugs, jugs, vases, pottery figures, tokens, intaglios and medallions. In 1787, Josiah Wedgwood produced a ceramic medallion (according to the V&A, probably sculpted by William Hackwood), which was distributed for free at abolitionist rallies.
The design is based on a seal commissioned by the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade and shows a kneeling black man in chains, coupled with the powerful slogan, ‘Am I Not a Man and a Brother?’ The medallions – easily manufactured and produced in their thousands – could then be framed or worn as brooches or buckles, and became popular fashion accessories.
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As Thomas Clarkson said, ‘Thus fashion which usually confines itself to worthless things was seen for once in the honourable office of promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom.’
This famous design also inspired ceramic figures. An early 19th-century Derby figure of a kneeling enslaved African, with hands clasped, and inscribed with a biblical verse to the base, came up for sale in
a Fine Pottery & Porcelain auction at Woolley & Wallis in February, and made a deserved £2,500 hammer against an estimate of £500–£700.
A Staffordshire pottery figure – in a comparable pose – made £2,400 at Historical & Collectable auctions in 2022: there is a similar figure in the collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. The medallions themselves surface at auction, now and again, and prices are on the rise. A gold mounted medallion – in good condition – fetched £2,800 at Bonhams in 2020, and a further framed example (with a ‘small rim chip’) brought £2,400 at Wilson 55 auctioneers in July last year.
Potters also applied the image to the lid of enamel boxes. A south Staffordshire enamel patch box (with cracks to the lid) sold at Bonhams for £1,000 in November 2022. Smallpox was widespread until the end of the 18th century, and these boxes held small patches (or beauty patches) which could be applied to the face to hide smallpox scars. A similar box, in better condition, made £2,200 (again at Bonhams) earlier that year.
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Staffordshire figures often reflect the social history and politics of the 19th century – it’s one of the many fascinating things about them. In the United States, the institution of slavery continued until the defeat of the Confederacy in 1865.
A rare Staffordshire figure of the radical American abolitionist, John Brown, whose failed rebellion and subsequent execution immediately preceded the outbreak of the American Civil War, dates from 1860 and features the bearded figure of Brown in a blue frock coat, flanked by two enslaved children. An example in good condition, from the collection of Micheál and Elizabeth Feller, sold for £650 at Woolley & Wallis in November 2021.
And a commemorative pearlware lustre jug, c1830, decorated with a portrait of Henry Brougham (the prominent Whig statesman and abolitionist) bearing the motto ‘Freedom and Christian Knowledge to poor Africans. He made the traffic in human flesh felony’ sold for £2,100 at Trevanion Auctioneers & Valuers in 2021. A further anti-slavery pearlware jug, c1825, fetched £2,100 at Woolley & Wallis in 2021.
Nursery plates – used to educate young children – also featured anti-slavery themes. A ‘harlequin’ set of four mid-Victorian pottery plates, decorated with transfer-printed scenes, from American author Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, (1852) sold for £110 at Historical & Collectable auctions in 2022.
Uncle Tom’s Cabin became the second bestselling book of the 19th century (following the Bible). The London edition sold 200,000 copies alone.
