The Clapham sect was a group of well-to-do, aristocratic evangelical Englishmen who had an enormous impact on England in
the 18th century and helped abolish the slave trade. The paper describes how they supported the missionary movement and domestic social reform, such as prison reform. In spite of their small numbers, their influence was wide, and their thinking enlightened for the time. The paper describes how they were intimately related to the Bloomsbury group, as some of their
descendants became core
members of this Group, and the Clapham wealth often financed the lifestyle of its free-thinking descendants. The paper compares these two groups and shows that although some of their attitudes toward society and religion were markedly different, both groups were characterized by their small size, large influence on their culture, and willingness to step outside society's current mores and rules and forge their own cohesive values. And yet, even though the wealth and legacy of Clapham descendents funded some of the most prominent members of the Bloomsbury Group such as E.M. Forster, they also ended up being some of their ancestors' harshest critics.