The Antislavery Campaign Continues: Remembering Salim Charles Wilson

This series of blogs have been written to coincide with the Coming Home: William Wilberforce exhibition. On display the Ferens Art Gallery, the exhibition sees the return of the famously unfinished portrait of William Wilberforce by Sir Thomas Lawrence, loaned from the National Portrait Gallery. This is part of a nationwide project by the National Portrait Gallery to return works of famous Britons to the places that they are most closely associated with. The blog series will highlight some of the key stories in the exhibition, which also includes art work and objects from the collections of the Ferens Art Gallery and Wilberforce House Museum.

The Antislavery Campaign Continues: Remembering Salim Charles Wilson

By Vanessa Salter, Assistant Curator of Projects

In the first two blogs of the Coming Home series, we discussed the life and work of William Wilberforce and the way Hull has commemorated him, primarily for his role as the leading parliamentary spokesperson in the movement to abolish the slave trade. On Wilberforce’s death in 1833 the city of Hull was quick to establish public meetings to discuss the process of remembering Wilberforce. Elsewhere in the city, and the wider East Riding region, meetings were being held by the Antislavery Committee to discuss the ongoing campaign against slavery around the world. Even after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, and the abolition of slavery itself across the British Empire in 1833, the antislavery campaign continued with a focus on instances of slavery on an international stage. This blog explores this ongoing campaign in Hull. 

One of the most significant individuals in this continued campaign was Christian preacher and antislavery advocate Salim Charles Wilson (c.1859-1946). His campaigning brought a powerful reminder to the people of Hull and East Yorkshire that slavery still existed in many parts of the world despite the continual efforts of many individuals and organisations to eliminate this terrible blight on humanity for over a century.

Wilson’s first appearance in East Yorkshire was in 1901 but it was not until the 1920s, as the wider national and local antislavery movement gathered momentum, that Wilson returned with his antislavery campaign tour. He visited Thornton Hall and Garden Village Hall in Hull  and spoke to large congregations of people, exclaiming: “Slavery” is an insult to both God and man. 

As a formerly enslaved man himself, Wilson recounted his capture into slavery to audiences in and around Hull throughout the 1920s and 1930s highlighting his own personal experiences of being enslaved and urging local people to be active in their support towards the League of Nation’s humanitarian campaign to end slavery. Their 1926 Convention on Slavery brought international attention to this increasing global issue. 

In response to the growing national awareness and mobilisation of antislavery sentiment, Hull’s Antislavery Committee organised an Antislavery Protest meeting held in Hull City Hall on 9th May 1928. The meeting drew large crowds of people, including Wilson who attended the event as a speaker. It was publicised through the efforts of Hull’s League of Nations Regional Committee and Hull Antislavery Committee, both of which were based at Wilberforce House Museum. These groups also worked with Wilson to promote his lecture tour by helping to organise and book meetings on his behalf through their promotional material. They printed and distribute over 50,000 antislavery leaflets and organised other antislavery meetings and used the city’s efforts, generosity and legacy of campaigning to demonstrate Hull’s humanitarian attitude towards continuing the campaign against contemporary slavery. 

Wilson travelled the country tirelessly, highlighting his experience of slavery to inform and educate the public in his antislavery crusade. As Wilson’s publicity material states, between September 1920 and April 1931 Wilson addressed 62 meetings; speaking to approximately 21,500 people and his tour distributed 50,000 leaflets. 

In 1933 Wilson returned to the city of Hull for the events commemorating the centenary of William Wilberforce’s death. He acted as a tour guide at the hugely popular exhibition of Wilberforce-related objects held in the Mortimer Suite in Carr Lane. During the week long festivities, several photographs of Wilson were taken with objects relating to the Wilberforce House Museum collection. One such photograph depicts Wilson holding a whip from the collection, another shows him seated next to the William Wilberforce wax figure alongside Una Marson, a fellow antislavery advocate. The figure was made by Madame Tussaud especially for the 1933 Wilberforce Centenary and it can still be seen today as it is on permanent display in Wilberforce House Museum.

To find out more about William Wilberforce and the continuing impact of Wilberforce’s legacy on the city of Hull, visit ‘Coming Home: William Wilberforce,’ on display at Ferens Art Gallery until 19th January 2020.