Wilberforce, William 1759-1833
English philanthropist and reformer

William Wilberforce was born in Hull, the son of a wealthy merchant, and educated at St John's College, Cambridge. In 1780 he was elected MP for Hull, and in 1784 for Yorkshire, and he became a close friend of William Pitt, the Younger, while remaining independent of any party. In 1784-85, during a tour on the Continent, he was converted to evangelical Christianity, and in 1787 he founded an association for the reformation of manners.

In 1788, supported by Thomas Clarkson and the Quakers, he began a 19-year campaign for the abolition of the slave trade in the British West Indies, which he finally achieved in 1807. He next sought to secure the abolition of the slave trade abroad and the total abolition of slavery itself; but declining health compelled him in 1825 to retire from parliament. He died one month before the Slavery Abolition Act was passed.

Wilberforce was for long a central figure in the 'Clapham sect' of Evangelicals. He published A Practical View of Christianity in 1797, helped to found the Christian Observer (1801), and promoted many schemes for the welfare of the community. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

Bibliography: Garth Lean, God's Politician: William Wilberforce's Struggle (1980); Robin Furneaux, William Wilberforce (1974); Oliver Warner, William Wilberforce and His Times (1962); Robert Isaac Wilberforce and Samuel Wilberforce, The Life of William Wilberforce (5 vols, 1838).