author
William Wilberforce
1759–1833
A driving force behind Britain’s campaign against the slave trade, he brought moral urgency and political persistence to one of the great reform movements of his age. His life joined public action with deep religious conviction, helping shape debates on slavery, social reform, and conscience in public life.
4 Audiobooks
A Practical View of the Prevailing Religious System of Professed Christians, in the Middle and Higher Classes in this Country, Contrasted with Real Christianity.
by William Wilberforce
Lettre à l'Empereur Alexandre sur la traite des noirs
by William Wilberforce
A Letter on the Abolition of the Slave Trade Addressed to the freeholders and other inhabitants of Yorkshire
by William Wilberforce
Private Papers of William Wilberforce
by William Wilberforce
About the author
Born in Hull in 1759, William Wilberforce became a Member of Parliament while still young and went on to play a central role in the long fight to end the British slave trade. Working with fellow abolitionists such as Thomas Clarkson and other campaigners, he repeatedly brought the issue before Parliament and became the best-known parliamentary voice of the movement.
A religious conversion in the 1780s reshaped his ambitions and gave his politics a strong moral focus. Alongside abolition, he supported other causes linked to social reform and public morality, and he became closely associated with a circle of evangelical activists often called the Clapham Sect.
Wilberforce lived long enough to see the cause he had pursued for decades come close to completion. He died in 1833, just after learning that legislation to abolish slavery across most of the British Empire would pass, and he was buried in Westminster Abbey.