time he became one of the Dissenters' "Deputies" – it being a custom for each Dissenting congregation within ten miles of London to be represented by two deputies, their aim being to overturn the Test Acts that discriminated against them. Here Sharp issued a famous letter in support of repeal. In 1787 the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed and Thomas Clarkson records that Richard Sharp was elected onto it along with David Hartley. The Committee produced prints showing the cramped layout on a typical slave ship (the Brookes), which had a profound effect on all who saw it, helping much to change public opinion on the slave trade. The print showed each slave being allocated less than 2 metres in height and 0.5-metre in width for a lengthy sea voyage that could last for six months or more, such figures being reached on the assumption that there were about 400 slaves on a ship when in fact there were sometimes more than 600. At various times Sharp represented the Whig party as a dissenting Member of Parliament: for Castle Rising, 1806–1812, Portarlington, 1816–1819, and Ilchester 1826–1827. In the Commons he often sat next to his friend Samuel Whitbread, whose move for popular education he supported. Clubs and societies Sharp was a founder member of the intellectual "King of Clubs" conversation club; and a member of many other London clubs and societies, including Brooks's, the Athenaeum, the Unincreasable, the Eumelean, and the Clifford Street Club. An early member of the Literary Society, he became in 1787 a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and in 1806 a Fellow of the Royal Society, his application to the latter being supported by Charles Burney Jnr, James Watt, Humphry Davy and others. From 1810 to 1812 he was Prime Warden of the Fishmongers' Company. London Institution Sharp's shrewdness and eloquence were frequently aimed at a tangible outcome or change. He was a leading figure in the 1806 foundation of the London Institution for popular education. One commentator wrote it was "chiefly owing to his influences and exertions that the London Institute [sic] for the improvement of Science and Literature has been established." At its foundation, Sharp was a member of the Institution's Temporary Management Committee and he remained as such for most of his life. In 1810 he served as its chairman, resigning from the position on 10