This day in history: William Wilberforce’s birthday, August 24, 1759
Dinner Topics for Friday
If you have not seen the movie “Amazing Grace” by Walden Media, I highly recommend it. It is a wonderful portrayal of Wilberforce’s heroic achievement. Note that his law made slave trade in Britain illegal, but total emancipation in the United States was not achieved until January 1, 1863, when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, after the United States fought a bitter civil war over this issue.
~C.A. Davidson
Wilberforce headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave
trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
William Wilberforce (24 August 1759 – 29 July 1833) was a British
politician, philanthropist, and a leader of the movement to
abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he
began his political career in 1780, eventually becoming the independent Member of Parliament for Yorkshire (1784–1812). In
1785, he underwent a conversion experience and became an evangelical
Christian, resulting in major changes to his lifestyle and a lifelong
concern for reform. In 1787, he came into contact with Thomas
Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville
Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They
persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one
of the leading English abolitionists. He headed the parliamentary campaign
against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.
Wilberforce was convinced of the importance of religion, morality and
education. He championed causes and campaigns such as the Society for Suppression of Vice,
British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra
Leone, the foundation of the Church Mission Society, and the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. His underlying conservatism led him to
support politically and socially repressive legislation, and resulted in
criticism that he was ignoring injustices at home while campaigning for the
enslaved abroad.
In later years, Wilberforce supported the campaign for the complete
abolition of slavery, and continued his involvement after 1826, when he
resigned from Parliament because of his failing health. That campaign led to
the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which
abolished slavery in most of the British
Empire; Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of
the Act through Parliament was assured. He was buried in Westminster
Abbey, close to his friend William Pitt.
Conversion
In February 1785, Wilberforce returned to the United Kingdom
temporarily, to support Pitt’s proposals for parliamentary reforms. He rejoined
the party in Genoa,
Italy, from where
they continued their tour to Switzerland. Milner accompanied Wilberforce to England,
and on the journey they read The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul
by Philip Doddridge, a leading early 18th-century
English nonconformist.[36]
Wilberforce's spiritual journey is thought to have begun at this time. He
started to rise early to read the Bible and pray and kept a private journal.[37]
He underwent an evangelical conversion, regretting his past life and
resolving to commit his future life and work to the service of God.[7]
His conversion changed some of his habits but not his nature: he remained
outwardly cheerful, interested, and respectful, tactfully urging others towards
his new faith.[38]
Inwardly, he underwent an agonising struggle and became relentlessly
self-critical, harshly judging his spirituality, use of time, vanity,
self-control, and relationships with others.[39]
At the time religious enthusiasm was generally regarded as a social
transgression and was stigmatised in polite society. Evangelicals in the upper
classes, such as Sir Richard Hill, the Methodist MP
for Shropshire, and Selina Hastings, Countess of
Huntingdon were exposed to contempt and ridicule,[40]
and Wilberforce's conversion led him to question whether he should remain in
public life. Wilberforce sought guidance from John Newton,
a leading Evangelical Anglican clergyman of the day and Rector of St
Mary Woolnoth in the City of London.[41][42]
Both Newton and Pitt counselled Wilberforce to remain in politics, and he
resolved to do so "with increased diligence and conscientiousness".[7]
Thereafter, his political views were informed by his faith and by his desire to
promote Christianity and Christian ethics in private and public life.[43][44]
His views were often deeply conservative, opposed to radical changes in a
God-given political and social order, and focused on issues such as the observance of the Sabbath and the
eradication of immorality through education and reform.[45]
As a result, he was often distrusted by progressive voices because of his
conservatism, and regarded with suspicion by many Tories who saw Evangelicals
as radicals, bent on the overthrow of church and state.[24]
Abolition of the slave trade
Initial decision
The British initially became involved in the slave trade during the 16th
century. By 1783, the triangular route that took British-made goods to
Africa to buy slaves, transported the enslaved to the West Indies, and then
brought slave-grown products such as sugar, tobacco, and cotton to Britain,
represented about 80 percent of Great Britain's foreign income.[49][50]
British ships dominated the trade, supplying French, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese
and British colonies, and in peak years carried forty thousand enslaved men,
women and children across the Atlantic in the horrific conditions of the middle
passage.[51]
Of the estimated 11 million Africans transported into slavery, about
1.4 million died during the voyage.[52]
The British campaign to abolish the slave trade is generally considered to
have begun in the 1780s with the establishment of the Quakers'
antislavery committees, and their presentation to Parliament of the first slave
trade petition in 1783.[53][54]
The same year, Wilberforce, while dining with his old Cambridge friend Gerard Edwards,[55]
met Rev. James Ramsay, a ship's
surgeon who had become a clergyman on the island of St Christopher (later St Kitts) in
the Leeward Islands, and a medical supervisor of the plantations there. What Ramsay had witnessed of
the conditions endured by the slaves, both at sea and on the plantations,
horrified him. Returning to England after fifteen years, he accepted the living of Teston,
Kent in 1781, and there met Sir Charles Middleton, Lady
Middleton, Thomas Clarkson, Hannah More
and others, a group that later became known as the Testonites.[56]
Interested in promoting Christianity and moral improvement in Britain and
overseas, they were appalled by Ramsay's reports of the depraved lifestyles of
slave owners, the cruel treatment meted out to the enslaved, and the lack of
Christian instruction provided to the slaves.[57]
With their encouragement and help, Ramsay spent three years writing An essay
on the treatment and conversion of African slaves in the British sugar colonies,
which was highly critical of slavery in the West Indies. The book, published in
1784, was to have an important impact in raising public awareness and interest,
and it excited the ire of West Indian planters who in the coming years attacked
both Ramsay and his ideas in a series of pro-slavery tracts.[58]
In early 1787, Thomas Clarkson, a fellow graduate of St
John's, Cambridge, who had become convinced of the need to end the slave trade
after writing a prize-winning essay on the subject while at Cambridge,[56]
called upon Wilberforce at Old Palace Yard with a published copy of the work.[63][64]
This was the first time the two men had met; their collaboration would last
nearly fifty years.[65][66]
Clarkson began to visit Wilberforce on a weekly basis, bringing first-hand
evidence [67]
he had obtained about the slave trade.[65]
The Quakers, already working for abolition, also recognised the need for
influence within Parliament, and urged Clarkson to secure a commitment from
Wilberforce to bring forward the case for abolition in the House of Commons.[68][69]
Following Pitt's death in January 1806 Wilberforce began to
collaborate more with the Whigs, especially the abolitionists.
He gave general support to the Grenville-Fox administration, which
brought more abolitionists into the cabinet; Wilberforce and Charles Fox led
the campaign in the House of Commons, while Lord Grenville advocated the
cause in the House of Lords.[118][139]
Lord Grenville, the Prime Minister, was determined to
introduce an Abolition Bill in the House of Lords rather than in the House of
Commons, taking it through its greatest challenge first.[147]
When a final vote was taken, the bill was passed in the House of Lords by a
large margin.[149]
Sensing a breakthrough that had been long anticipated, Charles Grey moved for a second reading
in the Commons on 23 February 1807. As tributes were made to Wilberforce,
whose face streamed with tears, the bill was carried by 283 votes to 16.[144][150]
Excited supporters suggested taking advantage of the large majority to seek the
abolition of slavery itself but Wilberforce made it clear that total
emancipation was not the immediate goal: "They had for the present no
object immediately before them, but that of putting stop directly to the
carrying of men in British ships to be sold as slaves."[151]
The Slave Trade Act received the Royal
Assent on 25 March 1807.
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