Wikipedia (12 Mar 2013, 08:38)
The Slave Trade Act (citation 47 Geo III Sess. 1 c. 36) was an Act of Parliament made in the United Kingdom passed on 25 March 1807, with the long title "An Act for the Abolition of the Slave Trade". The original act is in the Parliamentary Archives. The act abolished the slave trade in the British Empire, but not slavery itself. Many of the Bill's supporters thought the Act would lead to the death of slavery. It was not until much later that slavery itself was actually abolished. Slavery on English soil was unsupported in English law and that position was confirmed in Somersett's Case in 1772, but it remained legal in most of the British Empire until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.