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William Wilberforce

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Historical figures

   William Wilberforce, M.P.
   William Wilberforce
     __________________________________________________________________

   Member of Parliament
   for Kingston-upon-Hull
   2-seat constituency
   (with Lord Robert Manners, to 1782;
   David Hartley, 1782–March 1784;
   Samuel Thornton, from March 1784)
   In office
   1780 – 1784
   Preceded by Lord Robert Manners
   David Hartley
   Succeeded by Samuel Thornton
   Walter Spencer Stanhope
   Constituency Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire
     __________________________________________________________________

   Member of Parliament
   for Yorkshire
   2-seat constituency
   (with Henry Duncombe, to 1796;
   Henry Lascelles, 1796–1806
   Walter Ramsden Fawkes, 1806–1807
   Viscount Milton, from 1807)
   In office
   1784 –  1812
   Preceded by Henry Duncombe
   Francis Ferrand Foljambe
   Succeeded by Viscount Milton
   Henry Lascelles
   Constituency Yorkshire
     __________________________________________________________________

   Member of Parliament
   for Bramber
   2-seat constituency
   (with John Irving)
   In office
   1812 – 1825
   Preceded by Henry Jodrell
   John Irving
   Succeeded by John Irving
   Arthur Gough-Calthorpe
   Constituency Bramber, Sussex
     __________________________________________________________________

   Born 24 August 1759
   Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire
   Died 29 July 1833, aged 73
   London
   Political party Independent Tory
   Spouse Barbara Spooner
   Religion Anglican

   William Wilberforce ( 24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British
   politician, philanthropist, and abolitionist who led the parliamentary
   campaign against the slave trade.

Early life

   William Wilburforce was born in Hull, the son of Robert Wilberforce
   (1728–1768), a wealthy merchant whose father William (1690–1776) had
   made the family fortune through the Baltic trade and had been elected
   mayor of Hull on two occasions. The Wilberforces were an old Yorkshire
   family, the name deriving from the village of Wilberfoss, eight miles
   east of York. The elder William is described as a very delicate and
   somewhat sickly child.

   William Wilberforce the younger attended Hull Grammar School and in
   1768, at his father’s death, was sent to live with an uncle and aunt in
   St James’ Place, London and in Wimbledon, at that time a village to the
   south-west of London. During this time he was educated at school in
   Putney. It was also at this time that his aunt Hannah, sister of John
   Thornton and a staunch supporter of George Whitefield, influenced the
   young Wilberforce towards evangelical Christianity.

   His mother and grandfather, concerned at these influences and his
   leanings towards evangelicalism (which, at that time, was regarded with
   suspicion by those who considered it as similar to Methodist
   "enthusiasm" and to be avoided by respectable Anglicans), brought him
   back to Hull in 1771, where he continued his education at nearby
   Pocklington School. He succeeded especially in English poetry and was
   known as a fine singer.

   Wilberforce went up to St John's College, Cambridge in 1776, where he
   immersed himself in the social round of the students, and felt little
   inclination to apply himself to serious study. Amongst these
   surroundings, he befriended the young William Pitt, who would become a
   lifelong friend. Although at first shocked by the goings on around him,
   he later pursued a somewhat hedonistic lifestyle himself, enjoying
   playing cards, gambling, and late-night drinking sessions – although he
   refrained from doing so to excess; the extreme behaviour of some of his
   fellow students he found distasteful and he never engaged in their
   sexual excesses. He was awarded B.A. in 1781 and M.A. in 1788.

Early parliamentary career and conversion

   While still at the university, having little interest in returning to
   be involved in the family business, Wilberforce decided to seek
   election to Parliament and stood in the General Election of 1780. In
   September 1780, at the age of twenty-one, he was elected Member of
   Parliament (MP) for Hull, spending as much as £9,000 on ensuring he
   received the necessary votes, as was the custom of the time. As an
   independent Tory he was an opponent of the North administration,
   sharing the general feeling of discontent with the government. He took
   part in debates regarding naval shipbuilding and smuggling, and renewed
   his friendship with future Prime Minister William Pitt the younger,
   with whom he frequently met in the gallery of the House of Commons, and
   they formed a lasting friendship, together with Edward James Eliot
   (later to become Pitt’s brother-in-law), another contemporary from
   Cambridge. In autumn 1783 Pitt, Wilberforce and Eliot travelled to
   France together. They stayed in Rheims to improve their French, and
   were presented to the king and queen at Fontainebleau.

   Pitt became prime minister in December 1783 and Wilberforce became a
   key supporter of his minority government. When Parliament was dissolved
   in spring 1784, Wilberforce was soon recognised as a Pitt supporter and
   candidate for the 1784 General Election. On April 6, when the Whigs
   were defeated, he was returned as MP for Yorkshire at the age of
   twenty-four.

   In 1784 Wilberforce embarked upon a tour of Europe which would change
   his life and, ultimately, his whole future career. In October he
   travelled with his friend Isaac Milner, who had been Fellow of Queens'
   College, Cambridge in the year that Wilberforce first went up. They
   went in the company of his mother and sister, to the French Riviera,
   where they spent some time. However, he had to return temporarily in
   February 1785, in order to give his support to Pitt’s parliamentary
   reforms. Milner accompanied him both back to England and on the return
   journey, and they used the time to read Philip Doddridge's Rise and
   Progress of Religion together, and later to study the New Testament.
   They were able to rejoin the party in Genoa, Italy, where they
   continued their tour to Spa, Switzerland. This is thought to have been
   the beginning of Wilberforce’s spiritual journey, and he began to rise
   early to read the Bible and pray, as well as to keep a personal private
   journal. He resolved to commit his future life and work wholly in the
   service of God. One of the people he sought guidance from was John
   Newton, the leading evangelical Anglican clergyman of the day and
   Rector of St Mary Woolnoth in the City of London. All those he received
   advice from, including Pitt, counselled him to remain in politics.

Parliamentarian

   The Clapham Sect members, with which Wilberforce was so intimately
   associated, began with Parliament where they became a by-word for
   integrity and thus earned for the nickname “the Saints”. Wilberforce
   himself was a persistent worker for Parliamentary Reform; he constantly
   protested against the corrupt system under which members were elected.
   He was the most regular of all MPs in his attendance in the House, and
   no man served on more committees than he. As time went on, he became
   the keeper of the nation's conscience and a speech was expected from
   him on almost every motion, for men believed him to be above party.
   Newton's hope that the example and presence of a consistent character
   would have an effect on his fellow-members was realized. On one
   occasion Sheridan, hearing a rumour that Wilberforce was about to
   retire from politics, stopped him and said: “Though you and I have not
   much agreed in our votes in the House of Commons, yet I thought the
   independent part you acted would render your retirement a public loss.”

Abolition campaign

   In 1787, Sir Charles Middleton and Lady Middleton introduced
   Wilberforce at their house in Teston, Kent to the growing group
   campaigning against slave trade. Wilberforce, compelled by his strong
   Christian faith, was persuaded to become leader of the parliamentary
   campaign of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade.

   After months of planning, on 12 May 1789 he made his first major speech
   on the subject of abolition in the House of Commons, in which he
   reasoned that the trade was morally reprehensible and an issue of
   natural justice. Drawing on Clarkson’s evidence, he described in detail
   the appalling conditions in which slaves travelled from Africa in the
   middle passage, and argued that abolishing the trade would also bring
   an improvement to the conditions of existing slaves in the West Indies.
   He put forward twelve propositions for abolition, largely based upon
   Clarkson's Essay on the Impolicy of the African Slave Trade, which had
   been printed in large numbers and widely circulated. However,
   Wilberforce was opposed to extending the franchise to working class
   reformers, encouraged by Thomas Paine's Rights of Man to seek the vote.
   Wilberforce led the establishment of the Society for Suppression of
   Vice and Encouragement of Religion to curb political aspiration and
   support for the French Revolution. In January 1790, Wilberforce
   succeeded in gaining approval for a Parliamentary select committee to
   consider the slave trade and to examine the vast quantity of evidence
   which he put forward.

   In April 1791, Wilberforce introduced the first Parliamentary Bill to
   abolish the slave trade, which was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88.
   As Wilberforce continued to bring the issue of the slave trade before
   Parliament, Clarkson continued to travel and write. Between them,
   Clarkson and Wilberforce were responsible for generating and sustaining
   a national movement which mobilised public opinion as never before.

   This was the beginning of a protracted parliamentary campaign, during
   which Wilberforce introduced a motion in favour of abolition during
   every subsequent session of parliament. He took every possible
   opportunity to bring the subject of the slave trade before the Commons,
   and moved bills for its abolition again in April 1792 and February
   1793. Parliament, however, refused to pass the bill.

   William Wilberforce was viewed as an enigma by some of his
   contemporaries: a popular but small and sickly man whose single-handed
   energy and determination helped to eventually overcome the powerful
   pro-slavery lobby in Parliament and compel the abolition of the slave
   trade. James Boswell (1740–1795), Samuel Johnson's official biographer
   (who had been present at the dinner when it had first been suggested
   that he take up the cause), later witnessed Wilberforce's eloquence in
   the House of Commons, and noted:

          "I saw what seemed a mere shrimp mount upon the table; but as I
          listened, he grew, and grew, until the shrimp became a whale."

War with France

   The outbreak of the War with France in 1793 effectively prevented
   further serious consideration as the public mood was concentrated on
   the national crisis and the threat of invasion, although Wilberforce
   still persisted in his efforts to have the subject debated, and brought
   further motions in February 1795, February 1796 and May 1797.

   In 1788 Sir William Dolben's Act had been passed which limited
   slave-carrying capacity on the ships which crossed the Atlantic.
   However, it was not until 1799 that the Slave Trade Regulation Act was
   passed to further reduce overcrowding on slave ships.

   Public attitudes towards slavery and the slave trade began to shift,
   and the early years of the nineteenth century saw greater prospects for
   abolition. However, it was not until 1804 that Wilberforce had any real
   hope of moving a bill. That year, his bill did indeed pass all its
   stages through the House of Commons by June. Unfortunately, it was too
   late in the parliamentary session for it to complete its passage
   through the House of Lords. Wilberforce had to reintroduce it in the
   1805 session, and on this occasion it was defeated on the second
   reading.

The final phase

   Wilberforce began to collaborate more with the Whigs and the
   abolitionists in that party. He gave general support to the
   Grenville-Fox administration of February 1806 after the death of Pitt.
   Wilberforce and Charles James Fox thus led the campaign in the House of
   Commons, while Lord Grenville advocated the cause in the House of
   Lords.

   A change of tactics, which involved introducing a bill to ban British
   subjects from aiding or participating in the slave trade to the French
   colonies, was suggested by maritime lawyer James Stephen in early 1806.
   It was a smart move, as the majority of the ships were, in fact, now
   flying American flags, though manned by British crews and sailing out
   of Liverpool. The new Foreign Slave Trade Act was quickly passed and
   the tactic proved successful. The new legislation effectively
   prohibited two-thirds of the British slave trade. This was in part
   enabled by Lord Nelson's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar, which had
   given Britain the sea power to ensure that any ban could be enforced.

   The death of Fox in September 1806 was a blow to the abolitionists.
   Wilberforce was again re-elected for Yorkshire after Grenville called
   for a general election. He and Clarkson had collected a large volume of
   evidence against the slave trade over the previous two decades.
   Wilberforce spent the latter part of the year following the election
   writing A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, which was an
   apologetic essay summarizing this evidence. After it was published on
   31 January 1807, it formed the basis for the final phase of the
   campaign.

   Lord Grenville had introduced an Abolition Bill in the House of Lords,
   and made an impassioned speech, during which he criticized fellow
   members for "not having abolished the trade long ago," and argued that
   the trade was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and
   sound policy." When a final vote was taken the bill was passed in the
   House of Lords by the unexpectedly large margin of 41 votes to 20.
   Sensing a breakthrough that had been long anticipated, Charles Grey
   (now Viscount Howick) moved for a second reading in the Commons on 23
   February. As tributes were made to Wilberforce, who had laboured for
   the cause during the preceding twenty years, the bill was carried by
   283 votes to 16. The Slave Trade Act received royal assent on 25 March
   1807.

Other campaigns

   Although most remembered for his work towards the abolition of slavery,
   Wilberforce was also concerned with other matters of social reform. He
   wrote in his personal journals, "God Almighty has set before me two
   great objects, the suppression of the Slave Trade and the Reformation
   of Manners." It was at the suggestion of Wilberforce, together with
   Bishop Porteus and other churchmen, that the Archbishop of Canterbury
   requested King George III to issue his Proclamation for the
   Discouragement of Vice in 1787, which he saw as a remedy for what he
   saw as the rising tide of immorality and vice. This became the Society
   for Suppression of Vice in 1802, which led to the fining and
   imprisonment of many people, including free speech campaigners like
   Richard Carlile, for distributing the works of Thomas Paine and other
   secular reformers.

   The British East India Company had been set up to give the British a
   share in the East Indian spice trade. In 1793, Wilberforce used the
   renewal of its charter to suggest the addition of clauses enabling the
   company to employ religious teachers with the aim of "introducing
   Christian light into India."

   This plan was unsuccessful and the clauses were omitted, initially
   because of lobbying by the directors of the company, who feared their
   commercial interests would be damaged should the proposed legislation
   result in religious confrontations.

   Wilberforce tried again in 1813 when the charter next came up for
   renewal. Using public petitions and various statistics, this time he
   managed to persuade the House of Commons to include the relevant
   clauses and the Charter Act 1813 was passed. His work thus enabled
   missionary work to become partly a condition of the renewed charter.
   (Although deeply concerned with the country, Wilberforce himself had
   never been to India.) Eventually, this resulted in the foundation of
   the Bishopric of Calcutta.

   Wilberforce was also a founding member of the Church Missionary Society
   (since renamed Church Mission Society), as well as the Society for the
   Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (now the Royal Society for the
   Prevention of Cruelty to Animals). He also gave his support to local
   projects and was treasurer to a nearby charity school while he was
   living in Wimbledon.

Combination Act

   Despite his role in ending the slave trade, Wilberforce was opposed to
   workers' rights to organise for better pay, conditions and working
   hours. In 1799 he drew up the Combination Act, which suppressed trade
   union activity throughout the United Kingdom.

The National Lottery

   When Wilberforce's friends reassembled at Battersea Rise after the
   second reading of the Bill for Abolition of slavery had passed the
   Commons by a huge majority, Wilberforce turned to Thornton and said,
   “Well, Henry! What shall we abolish now?” Thornton solemnly replied,
   “The Lottery, I think.” Eventually owing to the efforts of this group
   the Lottery did go, but Wilberforce's “reformation of manners” embraced
   far more than that. One has only to contrast the picture of
   eighteenth-century society as given at the beginning of this essay with
   the sobriety and high moral standards of early Victorian England to
   realize that a great transformation had taken place, and had taken
   place within an even shorter period than is usually recognized. In
   1829, Francis Place, who was no friend to Evangelical religion, wrote:
   “I am certain I risk nothing when I assert that more good has been done
   to the people in the last thirty years than in the three preceding
   centuries; that during this period they have become wiser, better, more
   frugal, more honest, more respectable, more virtuous than they ever
   were before.” For this transformation Wesley was partly responsible,
   and Wilberforce and his friends built on Wesley's foundations, bringing
   their influence to bear in circles which the Methodists could never
   hope to reach.

   Wilberforce was an outspoken critic of the National Lottery of his day.
   In 1817 he described the state lottery as 'a national sin'. As a result
   of the campaigning of various members of the Clapham Sect including
   William Wilberforce the lottery was brought to an end by the government
   in 1826.

Emancipation of slaves

   Wilberforce was buried in Westminster Abbey next to Pitt. This memorial
   statue was erected in 1840 in the north choir aisle.
   Wilberforce was buried in Westminster Abbey next to Pitt. This memorial
   statue was erected in 1840 in the north choir aisle.

   Wilberforce continued with his work after 1807. His concern about
   slavery led him to found the African Institution, which was dedicated
   to the improvement of the condition of slaves in the West Indies. He
   was also instrumental in the development of the Sierra Leone project,
   which was dedicated to the eventual goal of taking Christianity into
   west Africa. Wilberforce's position as the leading evangelical in
   parliament was acknowledged. He was by now the foremost member of the
   so-called Clapham Sect, along with his best friend and cousin Henry
   Thornton and Edward Eliot. Because most of the group held evangelical
   Christian convictions, they were dubbed "the Saints."

   By 1820, after a period of poor health and a decision to limit his
   public activities, Wilberforce continued to labour for the eventual
   emancipation of all slaves. In 1821, he asked Thomas Fowell Buxton to
   take over the leadership of the campaign in the Commons.

   Wilberforce published his Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity
   of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves
   in the West Indies in early 1823. In this treatise, he claimed that the
   moral and spiritual condition of the slaves stemmed directly from their
   slavery. He claimed that their total emancipation was not only morally
   and ethically justified, but also a matter of national duty before God.

   The year 1823 also saw the formation of the Society for the Mitigation
   and Gradual Abolition of Slavery (later the Anti-Slavery Society). On
   15 May 1823, Buxton moved a resolution in Parliament against slavery, a
   debate in which Wilberforce took an active part. Subsequent debates
   followed on 16 March and 11 June 1823, in which Wilberforce made his
   the last speeches in the Commons.

   In 1824, Wilberforce suffered a serious illness which led to his
   resignation of his parliamentary seat. He moved to a small estate in
   Mill Hill, north of London, in 1826. This resulted in his health
   improving somewhat. In his retirement he continued his passionate
   support for the anti-slavery cause, to which he had given his life. He
   maintained an active correspondence with his extensive circle of
   friends.

   By 1833 his health had begun to decline. He suffered a severe attack of
   influenza and never fully recovered. On 26 July 1833, he heard and
   rejoiced at the news that the bill for the abolition of slavery had
   finally passed its third reading in the Commons. On the following day,
   he grew much weaker and died early on the morning of 29 July. One month
   later, Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act which gave all
   slaves in the British Empire their freedom.

   William Wilberforce was buried in Westminster Abbey on 3 August 1833.
   The funeral was attended by many members from both Houses of
   Parliament, as well as many members of the public. The pall bearers
   included the Lord Chancellor and the Duke of Gloucester.
   The Wilberforce Monument, Queen's Gardens, Hull.
   The Wilberforce Monument, Queen's Gardens, Hull.

   In Hull, £1,250 was raised by public subscription to fund the erection
   of a monument to Wilberforce. The foundation of the Wilberforce
   Monument was laid on 1 August 1834 in (what became) Victoria Square.
   The 102 foot (31 meter) Greek Doric column, topped by a statue of
   Wilberforce, was moved to its current site on the axis of Queen's
   Gardens in 1935. The Column is now used as a logo by Hull College, in
   whose campus the monument stands.

   A statue to the memory of Wilberforce was erected in Westminster Abbey
   in 1840, bearing the epitaph:

     "To the memory of William Wilberforce (born in Hull, August 24th
     1759, died in London, July 29th 1833); for nearly half a century a
     member of the House of Commons, and, for six parliaments during that
     period, one of the two representatives for Yorkshire. In an age and
     country fertile in great and good men, he was among the foremost of
     those who fixed the character of their times; because to high and
     various talents, to warm benevolence, and to universal candour, he
     added the abiding eloquence of a Christian life. Eminent as he was
     in every department of public labour, and a leader in every work of
     charity, whether to relieve the temporal or the spiritual wants of
     his fellow-men, his name will ever be specially identified with
     those exertions which, by the blessing of God, removed from England
     the guilt of the African slave trade, and prepared the way for the
     abolition of slavery in every colony of the empire: in the
     prosecution of these objects he relied, not in vain, on God; but in
     the progress he was called to endure great obloquy and great
     opposition: he outlived, however, all enmity; and in the evening of
     his days, withdrew from public life and public observation to the
     bosom of his family. Yet he died not unnoticed or forgotten by his
     country: the Peers and Commons of England, with the Lord Chancellor
     and the Speaker at their head, in solemn procession from their
     respective houses, carried him to his fitting place among the mighty
     dead around, here to repose: till, through the merits of Jesus
     Christ, his only redeemer and saviour, (whom, in his life and in his
     writings he had desired to glorify,) he shall rise in the
     resurrection of the just."

Writings

   In April 1797 Wilberforce completed 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 had
   been working on since 1793. This was an exposition of New Testament
   doctrine and teachings and a call for a revival of Christianity, in
   view of what he saw as the moral decline of the nation. It was an
   influential work and illustrates, far more than any other of his
   writings, his own personal testimony and the views which inspired him
   in his life's work.

   After the death of Fox in September 1806, Wilberforce was again
   re-elected for Yorkshire. He spent the latter part of the year writing
   A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade, an apologetic essay in
   which he summarised the huge volume of evidence against the trade that
   he and Clarkson had accumulated over two decades. It was published on
   31 January 1807, and formed the basis for the final phase of the
   abolition campaign.

   In early 1823, Wilberforce published his Appeal to the Religion,
   Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf
   of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies. In this work, he argued that
   the moral and spiritual condition of the slaves stemmed directly from
   their slavery, and that total emancipation was morally and ethically
   justified, and a matter of national duty before God.

Marriage and family

   A statue of William Wilberforce can now be seen outside Wilberforce
   House in Hull, where Wilberforce was born.
   A statue of William Wilberforce can now be seen outside Wilberforce
   House in Hull, where Wilberforce was born.

   On 15 April 1797, he met Barbara Ann Spooner (1777–1847), eldest
   daughter of Isaac Spooner of Elmdon Hall, Warwickshire, a banker.
   Within a fortnight of their first meeting William had proposed. The
   couple were married in Bath, Somerset on 30 May 1797 within six weeks
   of their first meeting. Their children were William Wilberforce (b
   1798), Barbara (b 1799), Elizabeth (b 1801), Robert Isaac Wilberforce
   (b 1802), Samuel Wilberforce (b 1805) and Henry William Wilberforce (b
   1807).

Legacy

   The 17th century house in which he was born is today Wilberforce House
   museum in Kingston upon Hull. A sixth-form college is named after him
   in the east of the city, as is a building at the university.

   One of the house (divisions) of Holland Park School, known as the
   'socialist Eton,' is named after him.

   A film titled Amazing Grace, about the life of Wilberforce and the
   struggle against slavery, directed by Michael Apted, with Ioan Gruffudd
   playing the role of Wilberforce, was released on 23 March 2007 to
   coincide with the 200th anniversary of the date the Parliament of the
   United Kingdom voted to ban the transport of slaves by British
   subjects.

   Wilberforce University located in Wilberforce, Ohio, is named after
   William Wilberforce. The university is the first one owned by black
   people, and is a historically black college ( HBCU).

   Various churches within the Anglican Communion commemorate Wilberforce
   in their liturgical calendars (also known as the calendars of saints)
   including the Anglican Church of Canada ( 29 July) and the Episcopal
   Church in the United States of America ( 30 July).

Citations

    1. ^ BBC Radio 4, In Our Time, 22 February 2007
    2. ^ Sickly shrimp of a man who sank the slave ships: William
       Wilberforce March 25, 2007 profile by The Sunday Times
    3. ^ BBC Radio 4, In Our Time, 22 February 2007
    4. ^ Keay, John. India: A History (New York: Grove Press Books,
       distributed by Publishers Group West, 2000). pp. 429
    5. ^
       http://www.hsus.org/about_us/celebrity_support/william_wilberforce_
       1.html
    6. ^ Wilberforce 2007, retrieved 21 February 2007
    7. ^ http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC17335538
    8. ^ BBC Radio 4, In Our Time, 22 February 2007

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