William Wilberforce
Wilberforce transformed the face of British History. He was named the Greatest Ever Yorkshireman by a BBC poll in early 2000 and one of the most influential figures in British political history.
Working alongside other abolitionists including Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp and, unbeknown to him, the slaves themselves who fought for their very own freedom, Wilberforce achieved the seemingly impossible, a parliamentary bill to end the slave trade which was passed in the House of Commons in 1807 and throughout the British Empire in 1833.
Wilberforce’s Life
Born in High Street, Hull, in 1759 and later baptised at the Holy Trinity Church, Wilberforce’s early years were at a time when the slave trade was already an established and thriving commerce in the UK and the world.
Today, his full life story is told at the award wining Wilberforce House Museum in the city’s old town.
Wilberforce became MP for Hull at the tender age of 21, the youngest person ever to be elected to the House of Commons. In his later political career, Wilberforce founded an association, and subsequently working alongside the Clapham Group, championed more than 60 reforms, one of them being the Royal Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty to Animals, more widely known today as the RSPCA.
Wilberforce is best known, however, for his untiring commitment to the abolition of both the slave trade and of slavery.
