The Wickedest of Cargoes

I recently went to see an exhibition put on by Newham Council at Stratford Town Hall about the slave trade. I should perhaps, before too long, do a blog about Stratford Old Town Hall - it is a building that is a work of art in itself. The picture shows elected Mayor of Newham, Sir Robin Wales visiting the exhibition when it opened. I was interested to discover how many local notables from East Ham and West Ham were connected with the campaign to abolish the trade in slaves two hundred years ago, and slavery itself. These include MPs who aided Wilberforce in passing the Abolition Act in 1807, and various campaigners, including Elisabeth Fry, Samuel Gurney, and Buxton. Of course the Borough has other links of a more unsavoury nature - Tate & Lyle have their biggest sugar refinery in Silvertown. I was impressed by the exhibition - it included a wide variety of artefacts and a good narrative outlining the history of slavery from ancient times to the present day. Slavery (in a variety of forms) exists throughout the world today.