Slavery at common law in the British Empire developed slowly over centuries, and was characterised by inconsistent decisions and varying rationales for the treatment of slavery, the slave trade, and the rights of slaves and slave owners. Unlike in its colonies, within the home islands of Britain, until 1807, except for statutes facilitating and taxing the international slave trade, there was virtually no legislative intervention in relation to slaves as property, and accordingly the common law had something of a "free hand" to develop, untrammelled by the "paralysing hand of the Parliamentary draftsmen". Two attempts to pass a slave code via Parliament itself both failed, one in the 1660s and the other in 1674.
The Slave Ship, J. M. W. Turner's representation of the mass murder of slaves, inspired by the Zong killings
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield,, was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was a member of the Scottish Clan Murray and was educated in Perth, Scotland before moving to London at the age of 13 to take up a place at Westminster School. He was accepted into Christ Church, Oxford, in May 1723, and graduated four years later. Returning to London from Oxford, he was called to the Bar by Lincoln's Inn on 23 November 1730, and quickly gained a reputation as an excellent barrister.
Portrait of Mansfield by Jean-Baptiste van Loo
Dido Belle (left) and Lady Elizabeth Murray (right)
Lady Elizabeth Finch (Later Countess of Mansfield) (left) and her sister Lady Henrietta, Duchess of Cleveland (right).
Murray circa 1737; portrait by Jean-Baptiste van Loo