Granville sharp biography for kids

English scholar, philanthropist and abolitionist (–)

For the Labour Party Member of Parliament, see Granville Maynard Sharp.

Granville Sharp (10 November – 6 July ) was an English scholar, philanthropist and one of the first campaigners for the abolition of the slave trade in Britain.

Born in Durham, he initially worked as a civil servant in the Board of Ordnance. His involvement in abolitionism began in when he defended a severely injured slave from Barbados in a legal case against his master. Increasingly devoted to the cause, he continually sought test cases against the legal justifications for slavery, and in he published the first tract in England that explicitly attacked the concept of slavery.

Granville Sharp's efforts culminated in 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 , Sharp and Thomas Clarkson founded the Society for Effecting the Abolition of