The Case of Jonathan Strong
Granville Sharp and his surgeon brother William rescued a young African man from the streets of London.
1767
King George III 1760-1820
Granville Sharp and his surgeon brother William rescued a young African man from the streets of London.
1767
King George III 1760-1820
From the late 1760s, Granville Sharp (1734-1813), a Clerk in the Ordnance Office at the Tower of London, acquired a formidable reputation as an anti-slavery campaigner. By the 1800s, the mere mention of his name brought trembling slave-owners to the negotiating table. It all began quite by accident in 1767, when Granville received a letter from someone called Jonathan Strong, claiming to know him.
ONE day in 1767, Granville Sharp received a letter from a Jonathan Strong, saying he was in jail and needed help. Unable to put a face to the name, Sharp made enquiries at the jail. When he was told no such person existed, he demanded to check every inmate himself.
As soon as he laid eyes on him, he recognised Jonathan as a young African whom Sharp’s brother William, a surgeon, had rescued from the streets two years before, lame and nearly blind. The brothers had paid for treatment at St Bartholomew’s, and then obtained a place for Jonathan at a pharmacy.
Jonathan now explained that he had been helping his employer’s wife into her carriage, when by dreadful chance his former master, a Barbados lawyer called David Lisle who happened to be visiting London, had recognised him, and claimed him as a runaway.
So it was that Jonathan was lying in a city jail, waiting to be shipped off to the West Indies.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
How did Granville know Jonathan?
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
Someone was in jail. He wrote to Granville Sharp for help. Sharp did not recognise his name.