Collection: Wilberforce House Museum

Collection-level records:

• Collection overview (Cornucopia)

  Social History Collection

  The Wilberforce, Anti-Slavery and Slavery Collections date mainly to the 18th and 19th centuries, with a few items focusing on 20th-century issues of Afro-Caribbean identity and culture, and on commemorative material. Amongst the collection are 904 items relating to Wilberforce, 320 relating to Anti-Slavery and 744 to the Slave Trade. These comprise books, tracts and archives; artefacts; oil paintings, watercolours and prints; sculptures and ceramics; and costume and textiles. The collection provides insights into the Transatlantic trade, plantation life and work, and the moral and commercial interests of both sides in the bitter political campaign to end slavery. Its quality and variety is unparalleled in any other British museum collection. It combines personal material relating to Wilberforce; representational material from the Caribbean and the United States; and the records of slave traders and owners. A large number of researchers and visitors from North America, West Africa and the Caribbean come to view and research the collections. Proposals are currently advanced to establish a centre for the study of Diaspora here, in partnership with the University of Hull. The collection includes Anti-Slavery material, in the form of ceramics, textiles, prints, paintings and documents. These record one of the first single-issue mass political campaigns to be waged in Britain. The motif or “logo” of the Abolitionist movement recurs in much of this material, and remains a potent image today. Wilberforce House contains the largest and most comprehensive collection of Anti-Slavery material in Britain. Of 320 items used in the campaign, the following are particularly significant: Wedgwood Seals: The leading 18th-century ceramicist and abolitionist Josiah Wedgwood, produced a seal for the Abolition Society in 1787. It depicted a kneeling slave and the legend, “Am I Not A Man and a Brother?”. A selection of seals, together with other items, demonstrate how this design developed into the campaign badge for the wider movement, through objects like wall plaques, a painting, sampler and canvas work panel. The motif was most recently used for the Wilberforce Medal. Model and Description of the Slave Ship ‘Brooks’: This wooden model was used by Wilberforce during parliamentary debate in the Commons. It illustrates the appalling conditions endured by slaves during the Middle Passage, the journey between Africa and the Caribbean. Bristol Museums reproduced the model for a recent exhibition, describing the original as “one of the most dramatic and powerful pieces of three-dimensional evidence in existence anywhere illustrating Transatlantic slavery”. It remains the textbook artefact of the anti-slavery campaign. The accompanying plan, with text, enhances the importance of the model. In its own right, it exemplifies the dissemination of information by abolitionists, who widely copied and distributed such material to strengthen a parliamentary campaign with popular support. Decorative Arts: A 19th century Coalport Vase is the finest example from a selection of ceramics bearing anti-slavery images and words, designed to take the Abolitionist message to the public. “Antisaccharite” tableware promoted consumer boycotts of unethical food – sugar from the slave-owning West Indies. The collection was strengthened by the acquisition of a 19th-century sampler depicting the image of the kneeling slave, with the legend “Thou God seest Me”, recalling the Christian basis of Wilberforce’s beliefs. In 1998, a pair of silver candlesticks, bearing the motto, “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” came to the Museum. They were first presented in 1813 to Zachary Macaulay, confederate and friend of Wilberforce. Abolitionists used atrocities of the slave trade for their propaganda value in cartoons such as “The Abolition of the Slave Trade” (1792), and “Barbarities in the West Indies” (1791). The latter depicts a slave thrown into a vat of boiling sugar because he was too sick to work. A more recent acquisition is an 18th-century French sketch, “A Slave Market”. Paintings then celebrated Abolitionist success. Francois-Auguste Biard’s “Scenes on the Coast of West Africa” was given to the Museum by Lady Buxton, descendant of Thomas Fowell Buxton. This oil painting had been presented to Buxton to celebrate the abolition of slavery in 1833. Widely published and exhibited, this evocative portrayal of a slave market is set against the coastline of Freetown Bay, Sierra Leone. It depicts the captain of a slave ship, African ‘caboceers’, and slaves being purchased and branded. The painting was described as “the only formal work of art of any consequence” in the 1996 National Portrait Gallery exhibition on David Livingstone (London Standard). In addition to Rising’s portrait of Wilberforce, there is another by George Richmond, RA, after the portrait by Lawrence in the NPG. Other anti-slavery supporters also figure: amongst material relating to Thomas Clarkson is a fine portrait by A.E. Chalons, RA. Slavery Collection The collection contains 744 items that explore the Middle Passage and plantation life, and the lives of slave owners and slaves. In 1972, the “Atkins Collection” was acquired. It comprises plantation documents, incorporating paylists, labour accounts and punishment records, and an impressive correspondence between J.A .Williamson, Captain of a slave ship, and T. and W. King, plantation owners. The letters discuss payment, cargoes and plantation business, providing an exceptional insight into the setting up of estates, and later, the compensation for release of slaves. Also important are a slave trader’s Log Book (1764); slave receipts; records detailing offences and punishments; West Indian plantation journals; and material relating to compensation claims following the 1833 Abolition Act. Other individual and emotive items include whips, branding irons, shackles and a slave collar.

  Subjects

  Social History

  Personalia Collection

  Wilberforce’s diary gives an extensive narrative spanning the years 1814-23. It contains almost daily entries made during Wilberforce’s period of active campaigning. This is complemented by a collection of letters (1792-1832). These include over 40 sent to Thomas Fowell Buxton (1792-1845) discussing contemporary affairs, and specifically Wilberforce’s retirement from Parliament – Buxton succeeded Wilberforce as leader of the Anti-Slavery campaign. There are also 44 letters from Wilberforce to his son Henry, discussing both family and topical matters over a period of 14 years. The 300 volumes of Wilberforce’s personal library came back to Hull in 1906. In addition to books on the interests of a learned man of the time, they include best-selling contemporary tracts, texts like his own A Practical View of Christianity, and volumes on anti-slavery. Together with his diary, the library paints a vivid picture of his life, writings, interests and beliefs. Election material centres on the fiercely contested 1807 Parliamentary election. Despite being a national figure, with the slave trade recently abolished, Wilberforce had to battle to retain his seat. Wilberforce Collection The Museum holds some 904 artefacts relating to William Wilberforce, including his diary, letters, clothing, portraits, sculptures, library and election material. The nationally exhibited portrait of William and Hannah Wilberforce, uncle and aunt to William, is by Joseph Highmore, the noted 18th-century portrait artist. William visited them following the death of his father; a formative encounter which introduced him to the Nonconformist tradition of active Christianity. The definitive portrait of Wilberforce, by John Rising, depicts him as a young man, when he first took up the Abolitionist cause. A life-size effigy of Wilberforce, seated in his Chippendale chair, was presented by Madame Tussaud’s in 1933.

  Subjects

  Personalia

  Decorative and Applied Art Collection

  Hull Silver, 16th and 17th century, spoons, tankards, bowls. Hull and East Riding clocks and watches covering the late 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, mainly by Hull anf East Riding makers. Smallish collection from16th to 20th century covering ceramics,metalwork, glass, furniture,clocks and jewellery. Ceramics, c.300 pieces mainly 19th, but some 18th century including Staffordshire and Leeds pottery also locally important Belle Vue pottery. Hull marked silver also important, 137 pieces not all marked Hull from a variety of makers and the Holy Trinity Church plate on loan; small furniture collection, some on loan from V & A, but Sheraton sewing table from North Ferriby Manor House;Sheraton writing table, a sttee, fireside chair, reading chair form Dowager Lady Nunburnholme;Sheraton mahogany breakfront sideboard and pair of Sheraton mahogany side tables via EECook Bequest NACF; 18th/early 19th century Dummy boards of nursemaid with child, gardener and a soldier and the full size carved and painted negro servant in 18th century costume are rare; Jewellery, 19th century, collection of about 180 pieces. Hull and East Riding clocks and watches are an important collection fromed mainly from the collection of Stuart Walker of Hornsea.

  Fine Art Collection

  Mixed collection of paintings, prints and drawings ranging from 16th to 20th centuries. F S Smith collection of drawings of local views, several hundred in number. Theatre bills of 19th and 20th centuries important.

  Source: Cornucopia

  Date: Not known, but before 2015

  Licence: CC BY-NC