CLAPHAM SECT. A name given by Sydney Smith (1771-1845) to a group of Evangelical philanthropists of the Church of England. They were so called because they lived in Clapham. One of them was the Vicar of Clapham, John Venn (1759-1813), a founder of the Church Missionary Society. Others were: Henry Thornton (1760-1815), first Treasurer of the Society for Missions, which became afterwards the Church Missionary Society; William Wilberforce (1759-1833), who carried the Bill for the abolition of slavery through the House of Commons; Granville Sharp (1735-1813), who formu lated the principle " that as soon as any slave sets foot upon English territory he becomes free "; Zachary Macaulay (1768-1838), editor of the " Christian Observer," which was devoted to the cause of the abolition of the British slave-trade; James Stephen (1758-1832), who resigned his seat in the House of Commons because the Government refused to support the registration of slaves; and John Shore or Baron Teignmouth (1751-1834), the first President of the British and Foreign Bible Society. " The influence exerted by the co-operation of
these men, and of the friends who came to visit them— men like Simeon and Dean Milner and Clarkson—was of vast importance in its day. The abolition of the slave trade, leading on to the abolition of slavery itself, was the work of this coterie. The Evangelical party found here their chief rendezvous. They started the Christian Observer, the only religious periodical of the day worth notice: they were the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and of Exeter Hall as a place for religious meetings; and they wrought greatly on behalf of Church Missions to the heathen " (W. Benham, Dictionary). See Sir James Stephen, Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography, 1849; Benham: the D.N.B.