Who was William Wilberforce?

Answer 1

b. Aug. 24, 1759, Hull, Yorkshire, Eng.
d. July 29, 1833, London
British politician and philanthropist who from 1787 was prominent in the struggle to abolish the slave trade and then to abolish slavery itself in British overseas possessions.

At Cambridge, where he became a close friend of the future prime minister William Pitt the Younger, Wilberforce was known as an amiable companion rather than an outstanding student. In 1780 both he and Pitt entered the House of Commons, and he soon began to support parliamentary reform and Roman Catholic political emancipation, acquiring a reputation for radicalism that later embarrassed him, especially during the French Revolution, when he was chosen an honorary citizen of France (September 1792). From 1815 he upheld the Corn Laws (tariffs on imported grain) and repressive measures against working-class agitation.

Wilberforce's abolitionism was derived in part from evangelical Christianity, to which he was converted in 1784-85. In 1787 he helped to found a society for the "reformation of manners" called the Proclamation Society (to suppress the publication of obscenity) and the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade--the latter more commonly called the Anti-Slavery Society. He and his associates--Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Henry Thornton, Charles Grant, Edward James Eliot, Zachary Macaulay, and James Stephen--were first called the Saints and afterward (from 1797) the Clapham Sect, of which Wilberforce was the acknowledged leader. In the House of Commons, Wilberforce was an eloquent and indefatigable sponsor of antislavery legislation. He achieved his first success on March 25, 1807, when a bill to abolish the slave trade in the British West Indies became law. This statute, however, did not change the legal position of persons enslaved before its enactment, and so, after several years in which Wilberforce was concerned with other issues, he and Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton urged (from 1821) the immediate emancipation of all slaves. In 1823 he aided in organizing and became a vice president of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions--again, more commonly called the Anti-Slavery Society. Turning over to Buxton the parliamentary leadership of the abolition movement, he retired from the House of Commons in 1825; the Slavery Abolition Act he had sought was passed one month after his death.

Answer 2

William Wilberforce, (1759 - 1833)

English reformer. He was instrumental in abolishing slavery in the British Empire. He entered Parliament in 1780 ; in 1807 his bill banning the trade in slaves from the West Indies was passed, and by 1833 further acts had eradicated slavery throughout the empire. He died shortly before the Slavery Abolition Act was passed.

Wilberforce was a member of a humanitarian group called the Clapham Sect, which exercised considerable influence on public policy, being closely identified with Sunday schools, and the British and Foreign Bible Society, as well as the issue of slavery. His work illustrates how individuals affected the cause of abolitionism .

Wilberforce was born in Hull and attended Cambridge University before becoming MP for Hull in 1779. His conversion to the anti - slavery cause followed his discovery of Evangelical Christianity in 1784. He became deeply involved in the work of the Society of Friends (Quakers) and the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and made numerous unsuccessful attempts to get the slave trade banned between 1791 and 1805. During this period, however, he gained the support of Whig party leaders such as William Grenville and Charles Fox , and when Grenville formed a government in 1806 he introduced the Abolition of the Slave Trade Bill. The bill was passed in 1807.

Wilberforce was responsible for leading the bill through the House of Commons, and convincing other members of Parliament to support the measure. This collaboration between a campaigning group and the British government achieved the complete abolition of slavery in the British Empire during the next 30 years. Although Wilberforce played little part in the 1825 and 1833 acts that brought slavery to an end, he had shown how popular pressure, religious belief, and parliamentary power could achieve success for the abolitionists

Answer 3

Former Methodist who became converted to Evangelical Christianity. Joined the Clapham Set, a group of evangelical members of the Anglican Church