Podcast

11. James Field Stanfield and the Art of Biography, with Declan McCormack

About the Episode

In this episode I tell the story of the actor, abolitionist, freemason and essayist James Field Stanfield. Born in Dublin in about 1749, Stanfield was educated in France for the Roman Catholic priesthood. However, he abandoned his vocation and went to sea, eventually working as a common mariner on a slave ship sailing from the Guinea coast to the West Indies in 1776.  Traumatised by his experiences, Stanfield used his theatrical success to fuel political and intellectual activism that established him as an important public reformer and a key participant in the ‘Northern Enlightenment’.

 

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