ABSTRACT
By now the story is a familiar one: how, on 5 July 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade appointed three of its members–Joseph Woods, Dr Joseph Hooper and Philip Sansom–to come up with a seal for the organisation. It would need to be something instantly recognisable as the emblem of the Society, but it had to be suitably dignified and illustrative of the Society’s purpose of ‘procuring such Information and Evidence, and for distributing Clarkson’s Essay and such other Publications, as may tend to the Abolition of the Slave-Trade, and for directing the Application of such monies, as are already, or may hereafter be collected, for the above Purposes’. The members of the Society knew that they would have difficult work ahead, for they would have to win over public opinion as well as pressure members of Parliament to pass the necessary laws. A suitable emblem would go a long way in making the Society and its goals instantly recognisable. 1
