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Somerset v Stewart (1772) 98 ER 499 (also known as Sommersett v Steuart, Somersett's case, and the Mansfield Judgment) is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on English soil not to be forcibly removed from the country and sent to Jamaica for sale.
[citation needed] In the Somerset case of 1772, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to Jamaica for sale, and was set free. In Scotland, colliery (coal mine) slaves were still in use until 1799, when an act ...
Despite this, it was popularly taken to confirm that slavery was outlawed in England and Wales. [3] Somerset himself appears to have adopted this broader interpretation, and wrote to at least one enslaved person encouraging them to desert their master. [4] Nothing is known of Somerset after 1772. [2]
1772, Somerset v Stewart, a freedom suit ruled on by Lord Mansfield in England, who found that slavery had no basis in common law, and no "positive law" had been passed to establish it. His ruling was narrow, saying only that the master could not remove Somerset against his will from England, in order to send him to Jamaica for sale.
The common law, ultimately, would go no further. But the decision of 1772 in James Somersett's case was widely interpreted as making slavery illegal. Whilst some academics have disupted this, the perception was fuelled by the growing abolitionist movement, notwithstanding this was scarcely an accurate reflection of the decision.
22 June – Somersett's Case: Lord Mansfield, the Lord Chief Justice delivers the decision that slavery is not supported by the common law of England. [4] 13 July – navigator James Cook sets out from Plymouth on HMS Resolution for a second Pacific voyage. [4] [5]
Granville Sharp's efforts culminated in 1772 when he was instrumental in securing Lord Mansfield's ruling in Somerset v Stewart, which held that slavery had no basis in English law. In 1787, Sharp and Thomas Clarkson founded the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade .
In May 1772, Lord Mansfield's judgment in the Somerset case emancipated a slave who had been brought to England from Boston in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, and thus helped launch the movement to abolish slavery throughout the British Empire.