History of William Wilberforce: Champion of British Slavery Abolition

William Wilberforce, unfinished portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence, 1828. Image: Wikipedia

HISTORY OF WILLIAM WILBERFORCE

One hundred ninety-three years ago today, on July 26, 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act passed its third reading in the House of Commons, ensuring the end of slavery in the British Empire. William Wilberforce had championed the cause for nearly half a century. This article, published on the anniversary of the Act’s passage, also looks ahead to Wilberforce’s birthday on August 24.

William Wilberforce, British statesman and England’s greatest abolitionist, was well known to the Founding Fathers of the American Revolution and became not just a politician, philanthropist, and abolitionist but also a writer of such popularity (in his day) as C.S. Lewis was in the 20th century.

As I mentioned in my first article on the History of Amazing Grace, Wilberforce’s mentor was the song’s author, John Newton. The popular film “Amazing Grace” briefly tells the life of Wilberforce.

William Wilberforce was born in 1759 to privilege and wealth in 18th-century England and, though physically challenged, worked for nearly 20 years to push through Parliament bills for both the abolition of the slave trade and the emancipation of enslaved people in the British Empire almost 200 years ago.

Early Life of William Wilberforce

Born in Hull, Yorkshire, he was sent to live with an aunt and uncle in Wimbledon after his father died in 1768. As a young boy, briefly encountered the great evangelist George Whitefield.

George Whitefield, by Joseph Badger, c, 1745. Image: Wikipedia

The former slave-trading sea captain, pastor John Newton, also influenced him. However, he was returned to Hull because his mother and grandfather wanted him away from Newton’s influence, which they thought was too evangelical and “Methodist,” much too enthusiastic for respectable Anglicans.

Friendship with William Pitt

William Pitt in 1783, by George Romney. Image: Wikipedia

Following private school, Wilberforce took both his B.A. and M.A. at St. John’s College in Cambridge, where he began a lasting friendship with the future Prime Minister, William Pitt the Younger. But Wilberforce was not a serious student, and he was given to late nights of drinking, gambling, and card playing.

He was elected to Parliament at the age of 21, the youngest age at which one could be elected. He was noted for his charm and eloquence; his phenomenal rhetorical skill caused the young Prime Minister William Pitt later to challenge Wilberforce with a considerable undertaking — abolition.

The abolitionist Thomas Clarkson collaborated with Wilberforce as activists on the issue of slavery. Together, they proposed a dozen resolutions against the slave trade to Parliament. Wilberforce’s early optimism was met with one defeat after another, but these did not dissuade him from the cause against slavery or other issues.

Dramatic Change of William Wilberforce

Amazing Grace film poster. Image: Amazing Grace film

What was the source of his motivation? At age 25, he heard the Gospel of Christ very clearly and converted in a way that changed his life. He would rise early in the morning to read his Bible, pray, and keep a journal. Within two years, he determined to serve God by serving the lowest and most ill-treated.

But what of his blossoming career in parliamentary politics? At this point, he decided to visit his old preacher, John Newton, now an influential Anglican clergyman installed as Rector of St. Mary Woolnoth in London. Wilberforce considered retiring from public life to engage fully in the spiritual life.

Painting of John Newton, published in 1807. Image: Wikipedia

Newton helped Wilberforce understand that an awakened faith did not necessitate flight from society. He told him that just as Esther had been put in the palace of King Xerxes “for such a time as this,” Newton went on to say,

“…One may not be able to calculate all of the advantages that may result from your service in public life. The example, and even the presence of a consistent character, may have a powerful, though unobserved, effect upon others. You are in a place where many know Him not, and can show them the genuine fruits of the religion you are known to profess.”

At the age of 28, Wilberforce wrote in his diary:

“God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners [morals].”

Though he continued to be plagued by poor health that kept him bedridden for weeks at a time, he attended to his causes. All his life, he suffered chronic ill health that included a crooked spine, poor eyesight, and stomach problems. He wrote:

“So enormous, so dreadful, so irremediable did the [slave] trade’s wickedness appear that my own mind was completely made up for abolition. Let the consequences be what they would: I from this time determined that I would never rest until I had effected its abolition.”

William Wilberforce’s Activism

William Wilberforce by John Rising, 1790, pictured at the age of 30. Image: Wikipedia

When in 1797 he settled in Clapham, he became a member of the so-called “Clapham Sect,” a group of devout Christians dedicated to correcting social ills. Wilberforce was dedicated to and helped found numerous parachurch groups like the:

• Society for Bettering the Cause of the Poor
• Church Missionary Society
• British and Foreign Bible Society, the Antislavery Society
• Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

He championed the cause of chimney sweeps, single mothers, Sunday schools, orphans, and juvenile delinquents. He supported 69 philanthropic causes, giving one-fourth of his annual income to the poor.

The House of Commons in Wilberforce’s day by Augustus Pugin and Thomas Rowlandson (1808–1811). Image: Wikipedia

In the same year, Wilberforce completed writing 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,” which he’d been working on for some four years.

He spoke against the decline of morality in the nation, but more than anything, he gave his own personal testimony of his life following Christ and his views. His book became a bestseller and a strong and influential apologetic for a vital and living Christianity. The book sold widely for over forty years.

William Wilberforce’s Emancipation Bill

“Am I Not A Man And A Brother?” Medallion created as part of anti-slavery campaign by Josiah Wedgwood, 1787. Image: Wikipedia

Though his previous Slave Trade Act passed in 1807 in Parliament called for the abolition of the slave trade, slavery itself continued. However, he always hoped for the emancipation of the slaves. He further campaigned that the emancipation of enslaved peoples was morally and ethically necessary and that British slavery was indeed a national crime that Parliament needed to legislate.

Compare this to the words 30 years earlier of Thomas Jefferson‘s well-known but unpublished portion of his Declaration of Independence – excised by the Second Continental Congress during debates between July 1 and July 3, 1776 – where Jefferson lays the blame upon Britain’s King George III:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life & liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither.

As old age set in, he lacked the vigor to work to its accomplishment, though he continued to attack it through speeches in public meetings and the House of Commons. Finally, 46 years after he began his fight in Parliament, the Slavery Abolition Act gathered sufficient support and had its final commons reading on July 26, 1833.

Poster for an event in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1849, commemorating the anniversary of the end of slavery in the British West Indies. Image: Wikipedia

It expanded the jurisdiction of the Slave Trade Act 1807. It made the purchase or ownership of slaves illegal within the British Empire with three exceptions: the Territories in the Possession of the East India Company, Sri Lanka, and Saint Helena (an island in the Atlantic). Full emancipation in the British West Indies came in 1838, when the transitional apprenticeship system was abolished. All told, 800,000 slaves were freed, mainly in the Caribbean.

Wilberforce was buried in Westminster Abbey next to Pitt. Statue, by Samuel Joseph (1791–1850). Image: Wikipedia

Wilberforce died just three days after the Act passed its final reading in the Commons, though he did not live to see it receive Royal Assent on August 28. He was buried in the north transept of Westminster Abbey next to his friend William Pitt, Prime Minister.

On the day he was laid to rest, both Houses of Parliament took a recess out of respect.

Bill Petro, your friendly neighborhood historian
billpetro.com