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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.
In the 1785 Inhabitants of Thames Ditton case, Lord Mansfield expressed the view that his ruling in the Somerset case decided only that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will. [106] Mansfield and Lady Finch did not have any children.
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
Lord Mansfield subsequently commented upon his decision in the Somersett case in R v Inhabitants of Thames Ditton (1785) [20] The official report notes that Mansfield expressed the view during counsel's argument that his ruling in the Somerset case decided only that a slave could not be forcibly removed from England against his will: "The ...
The Zong massacre was frequently cited in abolitionist literature in the 19th century; Thomas Clarkson's 1808 History of the Rise, Progress, and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade By the British Parliament included an account of killings, and was known to Jane Austen when she was writing "Mansfield Park" (1814), with its ...
His godparents, abolitionists, filed a Habeas corpus case with the courts and enlisted Granville Sharp to aid Somerset. [3] The case, Somerset v Stewart, saw powerful interests arguing on both sides, as it challenged the legal basis of slavery in England and Wales. On 22 June 1772, the judge, Lord Mansfield, found in favour of Somerset. [3]
Mansfield tried to persuade Stewart to free Somerset, as had happened in several similar recent incidents, thereby avoiding a potentially controversial legal case that might challenge the entire legality of slavery. Stewart refused, and his case was financed by planters in the West Indies who wanted to force a ruling that they believed would ...
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 slavery had never been enacted by English law, it did not legally exist in England and no person on English soil could be held in bondage.