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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.
Murray was born on 2 March 1705, at Scone Palace in Perthshire, Scotland, the fourth son of the 5th Viscount of Stormont and his wife Margaret [5] as one of eleven children. [6] [7] Both his parents were strong supporters of the Jacobite cause, [8] [9] and his older brother James followed "The Old Pretender" into exile, this left the family's finance relatively impoverished. [10]
[1] [2] Dido was the great niece of Lord Chief Justice Lord Mansfield who made notable rulings limiting the practice of slavery and the slave trade, notably Somersett's Case and the Zong trial. The 2013 film Belle drew inspiration from the painting. [3] It was once attributed to the German-born artist Johan Zoffany.
Robinson v Robinson (1756) 96 ER 999, Lord Mansfield's first case, holding a will effective if, even uncertainly, it does "manifest general intent" Cooper v Chitty (1756) 1 Burr 36, trover and conversion; R v Richardson (1758) 97 ER 426, principles of representative accountability in companies
The year Copley painted him he made a major ruling in the case of the Zong slave-trading ship. Mansfield's own great-niece Dido Elizabeth Belle was a daughter of an enslaved woman. Copley was an American artist who emigrated to Britain in 1774 and enjoyed success with his history paintings, although he continued to produce portraits.
The ruling in the Somerset case held that slavery was inhumane and illegal on British soil. Lord Mansfield's opinion in the case was widely read and commented on in the colonies. Slavery, Lord Mansfield ruled, had no basis in "natural law" and could only be maintained through "positive law".
As a result, Lord Mansfield, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench, had to judge whether Somersett's abduction was lawful or not under English Common Law. No legislation had ever been passed to establish slavery in England. The case received national attention, and five advocates supported the action on behalf of Somersett.
The practice of slavery in Canada by colonists effectively ended early in the 19th century, through local statutes and court decisions resulting from litigation on behalf of enslaved people seeking manumission. [3] The courts, to varying degrees, rendered slavery unenforceable in both Lower Canada and Nova Scotia. In Lower Canada, for example ...