Granville Sharp - Other Activism

Other Activism

Sharp ardently sympathized with the revolt of the American colonists. He believed in peace in America, but he also believed they were entitled to "Equitable Representation", an idea repeated in the famous phrase "No taxation without representation". When he realised his job in the Ordnance Office meant sending equipment to British forces fighting the colonists, he took leave of absence. As the war continued, he wrote to his employers "I cannot return to my ordnance duty whilst a bloody war is carried on, unjustly, against my fellow-subjects." Eventually in 1776 he resigned, never to have paid employment again and supported willingly by his brothers, who were happy to see him dedicate his time to his various causes.

Sharp also advocated parliamentary reform and the legislative independence of Ireland, and agitated against the impressment of sailors for the Navy. It was through his efforts that bishops for the United States of America were consecrated by the Archbishop of Canterbury in 1787. He also argued for the reform of Parliament based on Magna Carta and to back this up he devised the doctrine of accumulative authority. This doctrine stated that because almost innumerable parliaments had approved Magna Carta it would take the same number of Parliaments to repeal it. Like many others, Sharp accepted the supremacy of Parliament as an institution, but did not believe that this power was without restraint, and thought that Parliament could not repeal Magna Carta.

Sharp was also one of the founders of the British and Foreign Bible Society and of the Society for the Conversion of the Jews.