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Introduction

William Wilberforce ©

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) campaigned for the abolition of the British . He was an MP, a Christian writer and a social reformer.

In 1789, following his conversion to Christianity, Wilberforce became the voice in Parliament of the Abolition Movement; joining campaigners such as the , Thomas Clarkson and the former enslaved African Olaudah Equiano. For Wilberforce the slave trade was a sin for which Britain had to repent or be damned.

It took twenty years to end the British trade in enslaved people and almost thirty more before slavery itself became illegal.

Early life and Christianity

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 in the port town of Hull in North-East England. His family were merchants trading with Russia and the Baltic States. He had a privileged background going to Cambridge University before becoming the MP for Hull at just 21. He was the youngest member of the House of Commons. He went on to become the MP for the whole of Yorkshire.

His aim was to achieve personal success. He confessed to a friend "...my own distinction was my darling object."

He was close friends with the Prime Minister, , and the two of them were the political celebrities of the 1780s: their charm, wit and position made them greatly sought after in up-market drawing-rooms and social circles.

Wilberforce was popular in Parliament too. He was known as the 'Nightingale of the House of Commons' because he had such a distinct and melodious speaking and singing voice! It's said that he often sang all through the night.

Wilberforce becomes a Christian

1n 1784 Wilberforce's life changed radically. On a trip to Europe he spent time with one of his former school teachers; a Christian. Wilberforce read William Law's book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. The book touched him profoundly and made him doubt his unbelief.

He found himself moving closer towards Christianity and this led him to ask himself 'Can one serve God and one's nation in parliament?' He wondered whether the two goals might be mutually exclusive.

He discussed the problem with John Newton, the hymn writer who wrote Amazing Grace and a former slave ship captain. They met in secret because evangelical Christians were frowned on by the establishment.

Newton told Wilberforce:

Finding his cause

The Quakers, long-standing abolitionists, were joined by other opponents of the slave trade and formed an Abolition Committee in 1787. They needed a champion in Parliament - someone who would bring an "Inquiry into the Slave Trade" before the House of Commons - and they felt that Wilberforce was the man for the job.

Wilberforce's friend Pitt, the Prime Minister, in a famous conversation under an oak tree on his country estate, also told Wilberforce to take up the cause.

One of the committee's founding members, Thomas Clarkson, travelled thousands of miles across the UK researching the realities of the trade. His work provided the facts that Wilberforce would use in his first passionate speech to Parliament.

Slave ship diagram, circa 1790, presented as evidence to the House of Commons ©

Making the case against slavery

Although it might seem incredible today, the slavers argued that theirs was a moral trade because they were trying to help people who'd been captured in African wars, who were otherwise going to be executed, and they were taking them to a safe place and a new life.

Wilberforce's speech changed history. After reciting the facts for three hours he said to the lawmakers:

Fighting the battle

Only three years after Wilberforce's first speech, Parliament resolved to gradually abolish the trade. But a great deal of Britain's wealth depended upon it: in present day terms the slave trade earned the equivalent of the housing market or the IT industry. The Liverpool historian, Ramsey Muir, records that in 1807 some 17 million pounds changed hands in the slave trade in Liverpool in just one year.

For Wilberforce personally it meant enduring vitriolic attacks in the newspapers; he was physically assaulted, he faced death threats and he had to travel with an armed bodyguard.

There were powerful vested interests determined to prevent any restrictions. 'Gradual' abolition started to look like never.

Public relations

Josiah Wedgewood's design for an anti-slavery brooch ©

But the Abolitionists were brilliant at public relations and devised radical new ways of bringing their cause to public attention.

They had pamphlets full of eye-witness testimony. They had extraordinary graphics such as the famous image of the slave ship, Brookes, which showed captive Africans packed like sardines in a can.

The potter Josiah Wedgewood struck a brooch that depicted an enslaved man on bended knee. At the bottom of the brooch was the inscription: "Am I not a man and a brother?" Although an uncomfortable image by today's standards, at the time the brooch became a style icon that ladies would wear to fashionable evenings in town.

There were sugar boycotts, signed petitions, even a march on the prime minister's office. The fight to abolish the slave trade is now regarded as the first public pressure campaign.

Defeats

In 1796 the Abolitionists thought they had sufficient support in Parliament to succeed at last.

But parliamentary opponents offered free opera tickets to some of the bill's supporters for the night of the vote. Several chose to go to the opera rather than stay in the House and the Bill was defeated by 4 votes.

Wilberforce had a nervous breakdown and his physical health collapsed.

Daniel in the lions' den

John Newton quoted the Bible story of Daniel in the lions' den to Wilberforce.

Daniel, he explained, was a public man like Wilberforce, and, like Wilberforce found himself in great difficulty. But Daniel trusted in the Lord and was faithful and therefore though he though he had enemies none could prevail against him.

Newton told Wilberforce... "the God whom you serve continually is able to preserve and deliver you, he will see you through." This proved to be just the advice that Wilberforce needed.

Victory

Wilberforce's abolition bill became an annual occurrence in Parliament as year on year he brought the issue before the House of Commons for consideration.

In the end the merchants were wrong-footed by a separate act suggested by a fellow abolitionist and maritime lawyer called James Steven, which in 1806 banned British subjects from participating in the slave trade to the colonies of France and their allies. At a stroke this wiped out around two thirds of the trade and made Wilberforce's abolition bill academic.

On the 23rd February 1807, abolition of the slave trade was once again debated in Parliament. When Wilberforce realised that the majority of the speeches were now in favour and that the Abolitionists were going to win, he bowed his head and wept.

At 4 o'clock in the morning the Commons voted by 283 to 16 to abolish the slave trade.

It had taken twenty years to get this far. The capturing, transporting and selling of enslaved Africans was now illegal but slavery itself remained legal in Britain's colonies.

Emancipation of the slaves

Wilberforce retired from Parliament in 1825. Younger MPs like Thomas Buxton took over the Parliamentary battle. Wilberforce continued to support the campaign. In 1823 he wrote his famous Appeal on Behalf of the Negro Slaves.

By now Wilberforce was old and frail; he was often ill and his eyesight was failing. On 29 July 1833, just two days after he had heard that the bill abolishing slavery would finally be passed, Wilberforce died.

He is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Other works

Although Wilberforce is most famous for his battle against the slave trade, he was also active in many other social and religious areas.

His book, A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians in the Higher and Middle Classes of this Country Contrasted with Real Christianity, was published in 1797 and sold well for many years.

Most of England had become unchurched by the 18th century and Wilberforce was determined to draw people back into the Christian faith.

But he didn't just want people to return to a Christianity limited to church on Sundays; he wanted them to embrace a Christianity that would change the whole fabric of British society.

What he really wanted to do was to reform manners - not social customs, but the way in which people thought of virtue. Nowadays we might call that a project for making goodness fashionable.

He worked with friends inside and outside of parliament; bishops, friends in high places, and influential people throughout British society.

He worked with the poor, he worked to establish educational reform, prison reform, health care reform and to limit the number of hours children were required to work in factories.

Wilberforce believed that he and his supporters should attempt to cure every social ill in the country.

To deal with many of these problems they established organisations that would work to improve or rectify the particular social injustice that they were dealing with.

Wilberforce also used his large income for good causes, donating generously to charity and cutting the rents he charged the tenants on his land.

Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect

Wilberforce was a leading member of the Clapham Sect, a group of evangelical Anglican Christians with a strong bias towards social improvements, who worked for the abolition of the slave trade and promoted missionary work. One of their causes was the formation in 1824 of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which later became the RSPCA.

The Clapham Sect was very much a 'top-down' movement: they were mostly rich people who believed it was their duty to provide the poor with a better life. The name came from Clapham Parish Church in London, where many of them worshipped.

Friendship with John Wesley

John Newton wasn't Wilberforce's only source of spiritual comfort. He had a group of people around him who were encouragers, most notably John Wesley - the founder of and the greatest preacher of his day.

The Wesley brothers deeply influenced Wilberforce's political activities as well as his spiritual development.

In fact the very last letter that John Wesley wrote was to William Wilberforce, telling him to carry on with his appointed task.

The phrase Athanasius contra mundum means "Athanasius against the world" and is a reference to Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373 AD), a Christian theologian and bishop who fought heresy in the early church and was repeatedly exiled.

Find out more

• Slavery
• Further reading about Wilberforce and the abolitionists