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James Somersett or Somerset was a slave who was brought by his owner from Virginia to England. He then escaped, and was recaptured and bound in irons for shipment to Jamaica. In 1772 the Court of King's Bench issued a writ of habeas corpus requiring the ship's captain to bring Somersett to court. The chief justice, Lord Mansfield, issued a judgment which declared that "the air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe", that slavery was null and void within England, and that thus Somersett was illegally held. This did not apply to the rest of the British Empire, however, where the slave trade continued for another thirty-five years.
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