County history in the battle against slavery
THIS week in 2011 The Echo reported the results of a police operation in Cheltenham called Pentameter II. Brothels in Normal Terrace off the lower High Street, Evesham Road and London Road had been raided and arrests made for crimes linked to human slavery.
Pentameter II was a nationwide campaign in which Gloucestershire police officers played a key role, as senior officers and staff from the county coordinated the 55 police forces that took part.
The largest ever police crackdown on human trafficking in the UK up to that date, Pentameter II resulted in the arrest of 528 perpetrators and the recovery of half a million pounds in cash, plus assets worth another three million.
For a town noted as a centre for the arts, education and culture Cheltenham’s grim underbelly might shock some. But it’s always been there. The Victorian campaigner for women’s rights and social reformer Josephine Butler moved to Cheltenham from Oxford in 1857 when her husband George Butler was appointed viceprincipal of Cheltenham College. In 1902 she wrote of the town “There are low class brothels and slums which would be a disgrace to London and New York”.
The fight against slavery has a long tradition in Gloucestershire too. If you drive east from Brown’s Town in the parish of St Ann in northern Jamaica, in half an hour you pass a sign that reads “Welcome to Sturge Town. Free village established 1840. ‘We eat what we grow’ ”.
This rural village of some 200 people is named after Joseph Sturge (17931859) who was born in Gloucester.
Sturge was a Quaker and businessman who used his resources to campaign tirelessly for social reform, equality for women and the emancipation of slaves.
At the age of 29 Sturge moved to Edgebaston, Birmingham where his statue stands today at Fiveways.
When the Anti Slavery Society in this country began to promote reform rather than outright abolition, Sturge left and formed the much more radical British and Foreign Anti-slavery Society which pressed for the immediate, worldwide release of all slaves.
Due to the efforts of Sturge and others, Parliament passed the Emancipation [of slaves] Act in 1834. However, this didn’t straightaway result in the end of slavery. Instead it introduced a halfway house in which the word “apprenticeship” was used instead of the word “slavery” and the old system carried on much as before.
Sturge set out to highlight the inadequacy of the Act by visiting the West Indies to see what the situation was with his own eyes. His findings were published in a book titled “The West Indies in 1837”.
On his return from Jamaica Sturge brought with him a slave named James Williams. The two of them toured the country telling audiences about the realities of apprenticeship. Thanks to these stirring performances 800,000 slaves/apprentices in Jamaica were freed just over a year later.
In June 1840, Sturge organised the World Anti-slavery Convention in London.
One result was what today we call direct consumer action. British citizens were urged to boycott sugar, cotton and other goods produced by the slave system – and they did.
In 1841 Sturge turned his focus on the United States. When US President John Tyler wouldn’t see him, Sturge published his anti-slavery manifesto and it appeared in newspapers right across the country. He also sent copies to every member of Congress and prominent figures.
To prove the point that quite apart from any moral consideration slavery was unnecessary, Sturge bought the Elberton Sugar Estate on the Caribbean island of Montserrat, freed all the slaves and the venture remained viable.
He never gave up campaigning. On the day before his death Sturge wrote a letter to Mr Cadbury saying that Bourneville, the estate built by the chocolate magnate on Utopian principles, could do with a few more water troughs for the horses.