Baptism record at Manchester Cathedral offers insight into Black Mancunian life in Georgian-era England
A parish entry reveals an argument that proved pivotal to the abolitionist cause, at a time when an estimated 20,000 Black people were living in the country When the abolitionist Thomas Clarkson gave a sermon in 1787 at Manchester Cathedral – during the city’s first mass meeting against the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans – he saw a “great crowd of black people standing round the pulpit”. However, little is known about Black Mancunians in the Georgian era, which makes one recently redi…

