Early life Robert Wedderburn was born in
Jamaica in around 1762. His mother Rosanna was a black woman of dark brown complexion, and was enslaved in his white Scottish father's house as a house worker. His father was
James Wedderburn, a slave-owner and plantation owner who was born in Scotland, and was the son of
Sir John Wedderburn, 5th Baronet of Blackness, who was executed for treason following the
Jacobite rising of 1745. Following this catastrophe, the young James and his brother
John Wedderburn of Ballendean fled Scotland for the West Indies. James Wedderburn settled in
Kingston, making a living as a medical doctor before making his fortune as a
sugar plantation owner. While in Jamaica he fathered children with several enslaved women. While Rosanna was five months pregnant with his third child, having already given birth to two children prior to that, he sold her to her previous enslaver. In later years, James Wedderburn returned to live in Britain, where his legitimate son and heir
Andrew Colvile defended his father when these details were made public in the British press, denied the paternity and further claimed Rosanna was both promiscuous and unable to control her temper. Although born free, Wedderburn was raised in a harsh environment, as his mother was often flogged due to her "violent and rebellious temper". She was eventually re-sold away from her son, To escape the insecurity and abuse of the plantation, Wedderburn signed on with the
Royal Navy at the age of 16. On the ships, the quality of food and living conditions were abysmal, and it was during this time that Wedderburn became increasingly opposed to the
method of punishments used by the Royal Navy. During this period, Wedderburn found employment as a tailor, becoming trained in the profession; though he was also reported to have been involved in occasional incidents of
petty theft. As he referred to himself as a "flint" tailor, this suggests he was registered in the book of trades and shared values typical of other artisans - including pride in his craft and a belief in economic independence. Unfortunately, the instability of his career made him increasingly susceptible to the effects of a trade recession, inflation and food shortages, and he was soon reduced to part-time mending work on the outskirts of town. Wedderburn thereafter dabbled in petty theft and keeping a
bawdy house. In 1824, ''
Bell's Life in London'' published a letter from Robert Wedderburn addressed to
William Wilberforce giving an account of his origins and his father's failure to provide for him. It also published his alleged half-brother,
Andrew Colvile's, reply citing his father's denial of paternity and threatening to sue the paper if it published any further slanders.
Radicalism and activity (centre) and Robert Wedderburn (right). In 1786, Wedderburn stopped to listen to a
Wesleyan preacher he heard in
Seven Dials. Influenced by a mixture of
Arminian,
millenarian,
Calvinist, and
Unitarian ideas, he converted to be a
Methodist, and soon published a small theological tract called
Truth Self Supported: or, a Refutation of Certain Doctrinal Errors Generally Adopted in the Christian Church. Although this work contained no explicit mention of slavery, it does suggest Wedderburn's future path in subversive and radical political action. Wedderburn was sufficiently well known to be the subject of at least one satirical print by the caricaturist
George Cruikshank, who in 1817 published "
A Peep into The City of London Tavern" in which Wedderburn is caricatured alongside the social reformer
Robert Owen. The central figure in Cruikshank's 1819 print
The New Union Club may also be a caricature of Wedderburn. In 1824, he published an anti-slavery book entitled
The Horrors of Slavery, printed by
William Dugdale and possibly coauthored by
George Cannon. To promote his religious message, he opened his own
Unitarian chapel in Hopkins Street in
Soho,
London. After, he began to question Christian tenets. He was later associated with the
freethought movement, including popular
deists and atheists such as
Richard Carlile. He also campaigned for freedom of speech.
Prison Robert Wedderburn served several prison terms. According to
Peter Linebaugh (2000) it is recorded that Wedderburn "did time in
Cold Bath Fields, Dorchester, and
Giltspur Street Compter prisons for theft, blasphemy, and keeping a bawdy house." While imprisoned, alongside his associate Richard Carlile, Wedderburn wrote a letter to
Francis Place. In 1831, at the age of 68, he was arrested and sent to
Giltspur Street Prison and sentenced to two years in jail, having been convicted of keeping a brothel. On his release he appears to have gone to
New York City, where a newspaper records his involvement in a fraud case and refers to him as "a tailor and breeches maker, field preacher, anti-bank deposite politician, romance writer, circulating librarian, and ambulating dealer in drugs, deism, and demoralization in general". Some have located Wedderburn's deism, radicalism, and secularism within a history of British
humanism. The Humanist Heritage website recalls that "Wedderburn and others like him fostered a humanist tradition of rationalism, compassion, and tolerance, suffering the effects of blasphemy laws the like of which humanists continue to fight today." ==Descendants==