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Chapter 15 - Men of Colour: Wedderburn and Davidson

from Part Four - Ordinary Britons

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2022

Vic Gatrell
Vic Gatrell
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

Some 10,000 people of colour lived in London around 1800, and none escaped white people’s antipathy and prejudice. Thistlewood’s fellow Spencean Wedderburn and the conspirator Davidson were both born of enslaved mothers on Jamaica plantations. Long settled in England, they were mocked in person as well as in satire, though in his Soho ‘chapel’ Wedderburn returned as good as he got.Davidson’s dramatic life story was in good part invented (it is still falsely alleged that his father was Jamaica’s attorney general), but though he was latterly reduced to beggary he was fully literate and well schooled in the Bible. He was the only conspirator who went to his death in terror and penitence.

Keywords

Racismslaverybeggarylife storiesWedderburnDavidsonradicalisationself-invention
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Conspiracy on Cato Street
A Tale of Liberty and Revolution in Regency London
 , pp. 321 - 340
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

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