Shown here as a toddler, the boy in this double portrait went on to be a prominent campaigner in the Abolition of Slavery and a leading ally of William Wilberforce. Born to Hester and Stephen Lushington (first baronet of Aspenden Hall, Hertfordshire, MP and Chairman of the British East India Company), Stephen was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, after which he was elected a fellow of All Souls. He joined the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1806. In the same year, he entered Parliament as Whig member for Great Yarmouth, and spoke in the Commons in favour of the bill to abolish the slave trade in February 1807.
Lushington’s long life and career was devoted to reform in many areas of life he saw as unjust to his fellow men and women. He was chiefly responsible for an act of 1824 to abolish the transfer of slaves between British colonies. In 1825...
Shown here as a toddler, the boy in this double portrait went on to be a prominent campaigner in the Abolition of Slavery and a leading ally of William Wilberforce. Born to Hester and Stephen Lushington (first baronet of Aspenden Hall, Hertfordshire, MP and Chairman of the British East India Company), Stephen was educated at Eton College and Christ Church, Oxford, after which he was elected a fellow of All Souls. He joined the Inner Temple and was called to the Bar in 1806. In the same year, he entered Parliament as Whig member for Great Yarmouth, and spoke in the Commons in favour of the bill to abolish the slave trade in February 1807.
Lushington’s long life and career was devoted to reform in many areas of life he saw as unjust to his fellow men and women. He was chiefly responsible for an act of 1824 to abolish the transfer of slaves between British colonies. In 1825 he acted for the free-born Jamaican Louis Celeste Lecesne in a celebrated libel case, speaking on his behalf in the House of Commons. Lecesne subsequently named one of his children Stephen Lushington Macaulay Lecesne. After 1833, he played an important role in the campaign to suppress the slave trade carried out by other countries. In addition, he was a strong advocate of parliamentary reform, Catholic emancipation, full civil rights for Jews and dissenters, and reform of the criminal law.
In 1838, Lushington met the lawyer Charles Sumner, a leading figure in the abolitionist movement in America. Sumner visited him at home at Ockham in 1857 and the two became close friends. Lushington's support for the anti-slavery movement in America led to the Ockham Schools becoming a refuge for William and Ellen Craft, two celebrated escaped slaves from Georgia. The story of their remarkable escape was later published. [1]
A monument to emancipation, erected close to the Palace of Westminster in 1866, carries Lushington's name alongside those of Buxton, Wilberforce, Macaulay and Brougham.
Downman’s portrait of mother and child is both naturalistic and idealistic. Hester’s calm smile is somewhat at odds with the lively toddler she struggles to restrain on her lap. Stephen’s hand moves towards his mother’s to remove it from his waist, perhaps indicating that he wishes to run around the inviting parkland behind - a gesture that would be universally recognised by parents. Such clever and accurate observation meant that despite his prodigious output each portrait remained a unique study.
[1] William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom: Or, the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery, 1860
