Drawn and Engraved by W.C. Edwards from a whole length picture painted by H. Thompson, Esq. R.A. in the Guildhall, Norwich.
[n.d. c.1833.]
Engraving. Proof before letters. Plate 432 x 325mm. 17 x 12¾". Slight scratch in left margin just inside plate mark.
William Smith (1756-1835) was a politician of great power and change. He was a friend and close associate of William Wilberforce and was at the forefront of many campaigns for social justice and prison reform but most notably was his campaign for the abolition of slavery. He was Member of Parliament for Suffolk and Norwich for some years but it was in 1787 that he acted as the first to campaign for the abolition for the slave trade. In 1790 he supported Wilberforce in the slave trade debate and once the trade had been halted he helped Zachary Macaulay in 1823 found the ‘London Society for the Abolition of Slavery in our Colonies’, thereby launching the next phase of the campaign to eradicate slavery. His involvement in the French Revolution was controversial, and he swiftly gained a reputation as a radical. He secretly arranged several meetings between William Pitt and Maret, Napoleon’s foreign minister, in a desperate attempt to avoid war.
[Ref: 20317]  £360.00