Clapham Sect

A group of wealthy evangelical Anglicans centred on Clapham, London, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Its members included William Wilberforce, Henry Thornton, and other influential politicians, writers, and reformers. They campaigned for the abolition of slavery and promoted wider social and moral reforms, including improvements in education, prisons, and the treatment of the poor. The group was particularly influential in British public life during the early nineteenth century.