Diagram of a slave ship
Shopping for fabric
Wordsworth, 'Daffodils'
Textiles from India
Beethoven's sketches
Exhibition of a rhino and zebra
Deciphering the Rosetta Stone
Battle of Waterloo letter
Jane Austen, Persuasion
Peterloo Massacre
Cartoon of a street accident
Shampooing Surgeon
Description of London
Execution of a 12 year old boy
Diary entry on 'The Pillory'
Invention of photography
1832 Reform Act
Tolpuddle Martyrs
Early Chartist meeting notes
Dickens, Oliver Twist
The People's Charter
Dickens: Nicholas Nickleby
Poster for Living Mermaid
The Railways
First postage stamp
Coal mining
Popular entertainments
Engels: factory conditions
Freak show: What is it?
Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre
The Communist Manifesto
Chartist William Cuffay
The Great Exhibition
Sketch for the Crystal Palace
Woman's magazine
Poverty and the workhouse
London Zoo
Cookery for the poor
Human Exhibition
Mary Seacole
Ship building
Britain's Indian empire
Nightingale, Notes on Nursing
Victorian fashion
Florence Nightingale letter
Coal mining
Mrs Beeton - Lady's maid
Mrs Beeton
Mrs Beeton's Turkey
A Hulk (prison ship)
Underground trains
Alice in Wonderland
Letter from Charles Darwin
City slums
Opening of the Suez Canal
Music Hall
Street sellers
Freakshow posters
Invention of the telephone
Illusionists and conjurers
The textile industry
Victorian farming
Magic show
Circus poster
Victoria's Indian servant
Match Girls Strike
Jack the Ripper murders
Daily shopping
An Asian MP in Parliament
Gladstone: Irish Home Rule
Oscar Wilde on trial
Nightingale Nurse diary
Factory accidents
Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
This diagram of the 'Brookes' slave ship, which transported enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, is probably the most widely copied and powerful image used by those who campaigned to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Traders knew that many of the Africans would die on the voyage and would therefore pack as many people as possible on to their ships - in total there were 609 enslaved men, women and children on board this ship. The conditions would have been appalling. Each person occupied a tiny space in the hold. In this case they had to lie in spaces just 10 inches high and were often chained or shackled together in pairs, making movement even more difficult. The cramped conditions meant that there were high incidences of diseases such as smallpox, measles, scurvy and dysentery. Because of the long distances involved food and water was rationed and always in short supply or ran out completely.
By April 1787, the diagram was widely known across the UK, appearing in newspapers, pamphlets, books and even posters in coffee houses and pubs. An image had rarely been used as a propaganda tool in this way before and it proved to be very effective in raising awareness about the evils of the slave trade.
Shelfmark: 1881.d.8 (46)