200 Magazine #8 February 1823 / 2023

February’s edition of 200 reported the launch of the first big campaign to abolish slavery across the British Empire by activists including William Wilberforce.

Three big names had died in January: vaccination pioneer Edward Jenner, mathematician Charles Hutton, and John Julius Angerstein, a philanthropist whose art collection formed the cornerstone of the National Gallery, which opened in 1824.

200’s ‘news from now’ section reported the start of events to mark the bicentenary of the founding in Newcastle of a locomotive company by rail pioneers Robert Stephenson and his father George. There was also news from Dublin, Herefordshire, London, Norfolk, Somerset, Yorkshire, and South Wales, where the skeleton of a man said to have died thousands of years ago was found in the Gower Peninsula. The ‘Red Lady of Paviland’, as it was incorrectly identified and named, remains on display in Oxford.