THOMAS FOWELL BUXTON & THE LIBERATION OF SLAVES
By Oliver Barclay
William Sessions.
When I was in Hull recently, I was taken to visit the Wilberforce House. It is an excellent museum which covers Wilberforce's life and his great work with regard to the slave trade; but in a corner of one room, was a picture of a curly-haired, bespectacled man, which bore the caption: 'Thomas Fowell Buxton'.
Now while it is true to say that most people know about Wilberforce, the same is not true of his younger colleague, Buxton. Yet it was he who finished the work of freeing the slaves and fought doggedly to the end of his life, not only to ensure their freedom, but to enable them to lead happy and fruitful lives. Wilberforce, with Thomas Clarkson and others. brought about the end of the slave trade, but it was Buxton and his supporters who achieved the liberation of the slaves.
This was not the only cause for which he fought. He became a Member of Parliament and, at the start of one session, he wrote: '. . . 'how can I promote the welfare of others . . . In public by attending to the Slave Trade, Slavery, Indian widows burning themselves, the completion of those objects which have made some advance, viz. Criminal Law, Prisons (Elizabeth Fry was his sister-in-law) and Police'.
But the mainspring of his work is found at the beginning of the same paragraph: 'Let me renounce the world as much as possible; as much as possible acknowledge God in all my ways and words . . .' After a time of spiritual darkness and difficulty, he had become a Christian in 1812 and, from that time onwards, in spite of mediocre health, the loss of five children, much public opposition and some failure, his unswerving purpose was to dedicate all to the service of Christ - '. . . that I may devote myself, my influence, my time, and, above all, my affections, to the honour of God and the happiness of man'.
Dr. Barclay, in this much-needed life of Buxton, has had recourse to many hitherto unpublished papers. Buxton married Hannah Gurney, the daughter of a wonderful family with many ramifications, and various descendants have helped Dr. Barclay in his research and writing. So the book is full of interest, with some touching quotations from many letters and contemporary papers, as well as some accounts of the horrors of slavery.
Dr. Barclay explains and analyses the times in which Buxton lived, and he has an excellent chapter on the Niger expedition. He shows that though this was an apparent failure, some good results came from it, and he points out, too, how Buxton was ahead of his time in his insistence that, given the opportunity, the Africans were quite capable of running their own lives.
Useful lessons
Throughout the book, Dr. Barclay comments on the lessons which we can learn from Thomas Fowell Buxton. He shows how Buxton felt no tension between evangelism and social welfare: 'In fact, he, and the others of his evangelistic outlook, kept the two aspects in a splendid partnership as both of value in themselves and a proper concern to all Christians. This is a balance that was sometimes lost in the early 20th century, and a tradition which evangelicals today would do well to note.'
In the same way, though Buxton increasingly felt the pressure of how best to use his time, he was quite clear that his calling was to serve God in the sphere of public life. 'This capacity', he wrote, 'is, I feel, no mean talent, and attended with no inconsiderable responsibility'. Dr. Barclay has said that one of his purposes in the book is to show how widely and deeply a Christian layman can be used in such service and he uses Buxton's own words to underline this.
This is a very worthwhile book. It is well-illustrated and produced by Sessions of York, and also has a useful bibliography. Furthermore, Dr. Barclay himself - with his long Christian experience and many years of writing about the issues of Christian life and faith - is admirably suited to be the author of such a biography. He has written s book which honours its subject, Thomas Fowell Buxton, his great-great-grandfather, and, above all, honours God who has used them both in his service.
