It's Anti-Slavery Day tomorrow -and Staffordshire has a proud record in the campaign to oppose slavery at the end of the eighteenth century. Erasmus Darwin (whose statue this is, in Beacon Park in Lichfield) was one of the local thinkers who were bitterly opposed to the slave trade, and was also one of those who took part in the campaign to boycott sugar from the West Indies in 1792. (Strange to think that boycotts were used even back then...).
By the way, you'll notice in the statue's left hand three shells - because his motto was E Conchis Omnia (Everything From Shells). He was one of the first people to consider evolution scientifically, and his motto reflected his thinking on that matter.
Quite a statue. He and the men and women like him were ahead of their time, and definitely on the right side of history in more than one way.
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