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05 November 2024

Thomas Clarkson's chest to feature in major Cambridge exhibition

Staff at Wisbech and Fenland Museum have prepared one of its greatest treasures – abolitionist Thomas Clarkson's campaign chest – which is now on loan to the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, as part of their exhibition Rise Up: Resistance, Revolution, Abolition, which is scheduled to run from 21 February to 1 June 2025.

The chest, carried 35,000 miles around Britain by Wisbech-born Clarkson to rouse popular feeling against slavery, contained a selection of African trading goods which he collected from sailors of ships in British slave ports. Also contained in the chest were examples of the implements of torture and restraint used to repress enslaved people.

Some of the items originally contained within the chest were lost prior to its gift to the Museum in 1870, of those that remain many are significant examples of African craftsmanship, particularly the textile samples - one of which could be the oldest surviving textile made in the Kente tradition. The chest is an iconic object in the story of the anti-slavery movement in Britain.

Curator Robert Bell said: “Clarkson's chest is rightly to be given a major role in this important exhibition at one of the country's leading museums, because the evidence it carried was pivotal in getting the slave trade in the British Empire abolished in 1807. Clarkson was still fighting slavery itself when he died in 1846.”

The loan will delay the reappearance of Wisbech Museum's own permanent exhibit about the town's connection with the fight against slavery through Thomas Clarkson.

The chest and other items were removed from display for their protection during the Museum's major roof refurbishment in 2021-2 and a dedicated permanent exhibition space will be prepared for the chest's return in the Autumn of 2025.

Robert said: “We're excited to see how the exhibition at the Fitzwilliam showcases the life and work of Thomas Clarkson.”