William Wilberforce
Member of Parliament, born in Hull, who led the campaign in the House of Commons against the British slave trade from 1789 until the Act of 1807 and wrote a book calling his own class to what he called real Christianity.
Wilberforce was born at Hull on 24 August 1759 (Life of Wilberforce vol. 1, p. 1). His sons, who wrote his life from his papers, quote him as saying that in his first years in Parliament his own distinction was his “darling object”, and they print the entry in his journal for 28 October 1787: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners” (Life of Wilberforce vol. 1, p. 149).
In 1787, at a dinner which Thomas Clarkson describes, he said that he would bring the question before Parliament when he was better prepared for it, if no one more fit could be found (Clarkson, History of the Abolition ch. 10), and on 12 May 1789 he brought it before the House of Commons (Clarkson, History of the Abolition ch. 24). See Christians and the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In 1797, as member for the county of York, he published A Practical View, which sets what he calls real Christianity against the religion of the higher and middle classes (Wilberforce, Practical View title page and introduction). He died on 29 July 1833 (Life of Wilberforce vol. 5, p. 373).
In the timeline
- 25 March 1807, firm dateChristians and the Abolition of the Slave Trade
After twenty years of campaigning by Quakers, Anglicans and a formerly enslaved writer, Parliament makes the British slave trade unlawful. Other Christians had defended the trade from the Bible, and a missionary society held slaves of its own.
Primary sources
The Life of William Wilberforce
- Life of Wilberforce vol. 1, p. 1archive.org
- Life of Wilberforce vol. 1, p. 149archive.org
- Life of Wilberforce vol. 5, p. 373archive.org