William
Wilberforce,
the son of a wealthy merchant, was born in Hull
in 1759. William's father died when he was young and for a time was
brought up by an uncle and aunt. William came under the influence
of his aunt, who was a strong supporter of John
Wesley and the Methodist movement.
Disturbed by these developments, Mrs. Wilberforce brought her son
back to the family home.
At seventeen Wilberforce was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge.
Wilberforce was shocked by the behaviour of his fellow students and
later wrote: "I was introduced on the very first night of my
arrival to as licentious a set of men as can well be conceived. They
drank hard, and their conversation was even worse than their lives."
One of Wilberforce's friends at university was William
Pitt, who was later to become Britain's youngest ever Prime Minister.
William
Wilberforce decided on a career in politics and soon after leaving
university at the age of twenty, he decided to become a candidate
in the forthcoming parliamentary election in Hull.
His opponent was Lord Rockingham, a rich and powerful member of the
nobility, and Wilberforce had to spend nearly £9,000 to become
elected. In the House of Commons Wilberforce
supported the the Tory government led by
William Pitt.
In 1784 Wilberforce became converted to Evangelical
Christianity. He joined the Clapham Set,
a group of evangelical members of the Anglican
Church, centered around John Venn, rector of Clapham Church in
London. As a result of this conversion,
Wilberforce became interested in social reform and was eventually
approached by Lady Middleton, to use his power as an MP to bring an
end to the slave trade.
Society of Friends in Britain had been
campaigning against the slave trade for many years. They had presented
a petition to Parliament in 1783 and in 1787 had helped form the Society
for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Of the twelve members on
the committee nine were Quakers. As a
member of the evangelical movement,
Wilberforce was sympathetic to Mrs. Middleton's request. In his letter
of reply, Wilberforce wrote: "I feel the great importance of
the subject and I think myself unequal to the task allotted to me."
Despite these doubts, Wilberforce agreed to Mrs. Middleton's request,
but soon afterwards, he became very ill and it was not until 12th
May, 1789, that he made his first speech against the slave trade.
Wilberforce, along with Thomas
Clarkson and Granville Sharp, was now
seen as one of the leaders of the anti-slave trade movement. Most
of Wilberforce's Tory colleagues in the
House of Commons were opposed to any restrictions
on the slave trade and at first he had to rely on the support of Whigs
such as Charles Fox, Richard
Brinsley Sheridan, William Grenville
and Henry Brougham. When William
Wilberforce presented his first bill to abolish the slave trade in
1791 it was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88.
Wilberforce refused to be beaten and in 1805 the House
of Commons passed a bill to that made it unlawful for any British
subject to transport slaves, but the measure was blocked by the House
of Lords.
In February 1806, Lord Grenville
formed a Whig administration. Grenville and
his Foreign Secretary, Charles Fox, were strong
opponents of the slave trade. Fox and Wilberforce led the campaign
in the House of Commons, whereas Grenville,
had the task of persuading the House of Lords
to accept the measure.
Greenville made a passionate speech where he argued that the trade
was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound
policy" and criticised fellow members for "not having abolished
the trade long ago". When the vote was taken the Abolition of
the Slave Trade bill was passed in the House
of Lords by 41 votes to 20. In the House
of Commons it was carried by 114 to 15 and it become law on 25th
March, 1807.
British captains who were caught continuing the trade were fined £100
for every slave found on board. However, this law did not stop the
British slave trade. If slave-ships were in danger of being captured
by the British navy, captains often reduced the fines they had to
pay by ordering the slaves to be thrown into the sea.
Some people involved in the anti-slave trade campaign such as Thomas
Fowell Buxton, argued that the only way to end the suffering of
the slaves was to make slavery illegal. Wilberforce disagreed, he
believed that at this time slaves were not ready to be granted their
freedom. He pointed out in a pamphlet that he wrote in 1807 that:
"It would be wrong to emancipate (the slaves). To grant freedom
to them immediately, would be to insure not only their masters' ruin,
but their own. They must (first) be trained and educated for freedom."
In 1823 Thomas Fowell Buxton formed the
Society for the Mitigation and Gradual
Abolition of Slavery. Buxton eventually persuaded Wilberforce
to join his campaign but as he had retired from the House
of Commons in 1825, he did not play an important part in persuading
Parliament to bring an end to slavery.
William Wilberforce died on 29th July, 1833. One month later, Parliament
passed the Slavery Abolition Act that
gave all slaves in the British Empire their freedom.
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