Black and British: A Forgotten History, from the acclaimed historian and star of 'Celebrity Traitors'

by David Olusoga

In our traditional telling of the history of slavery, which is so heavily focused on the abolitionists and their struggles, the men against whom the abolitionists struggled have, bizarrely, been written out of the story. With our national gaze fixed firmly on the saintly figure of William Wilberforce, George Hibbert remains a forgotten figure. Yet his association with Wilberforce runs deep, and without him this history is incomplete. Both Wilberforce and Hibbert lived in homes overlooking Clapham Common and both men worshipped at Holy Trinity, an elegant Georgian church that stands under the shade of some broad trees in one corner of the Common. Wilberforce and his supporters – the pious men of what was called the Clapham Sect and sometimes the Clapham Saints – shared the pews of their little church with their greatest and most effective enemy. There are no records of services being disrupted of passions spilling over. While the names of the Clapham Saints are engraved into a stone plaque fixed into the walls of Holy Trinity, George Hibbert is notably absent. Whereas the home that Wilberforce shared with his cousin Henry Thornton is proudly and rightly stamped with a blue heritage plaque, the elegant town house that once belonged to George Hibbert is unmarked and anonymous.