William Wilberforce: Part 3 - Other concerns (cont.)

Other concerns (cont.)

Emancipation of enslaved Africans

Wilberforce worked with the members of the African Institution to ensure the enforcement of the abolition of the slave trade and to promote abolitionist negotiations with other countries.^{[126][166][167]} In particular, the United States had abolished the slave trade after 1808 and Wilberforce lobbied the American government to enforce its own mandated prohibition more strongly.^[168] The same year, Wilberforce moved his family from Clapham to a sizeable mansion with a large garden in Kensington Gore, closer to the Houses of Parliament. In worsening health by 1812, Wilberforce resigned his Yorkshire seat, and became MP for the rotten borough of Bramber in Sussex, a seat with little or no constituency obligations, thus allowing him more time for his family and the causes that interested him.^[169] From 1816, Wilberforce introduced a series of bills which would require the compulsory registration of enslaved people, together with details of their country of origin, permitting the illegal importation of foreign slaves to be detected. Later in the same year he began to publicly denounce slavery itself, though he did not demand immediate emancipation, believing incremental change to be more effective in achieving abolition.^[170]

In 1820, after a period of poor health and with his eyesight failing, Wilberforce further limited public activities,^[171] although he became embroiled in unsuccessful mediation attempts between King George IV, and his estranged wife Caroline of Brunswick, who had sought her rights as queen of the realm.^[1] Wilberforce still hoped "to lay a foundation for some future measures for the emancipation of the poor slaves".^[172] Aware that the cause would need younger men to continue the work, in 1821 he asked MP Thomas Fowell Buxton to take over leadership of the campaign in the Commons.^[171] As the 1820s continued, Wilberforce increasingly became more of a figurehead for the abolitionist movement, although he continued to appear at anti-slavery meetings, welcoming visitors, and maintaining a busy correspondence on the subject.^{[173][174][175]}

In 1823 Wilberforce's 56-page "Appeal to the Religion, Justice and Humanity of the Inhabitants of the British Empire in Behalf of the Negro Slaves in the West Indies" was published.^[176] The treatise stated that total emancipation was morally and ethically required and that slavery was a national crime which must be ended by parliamentary legislation to gradually abolish slavery.^[177] Members of Parliament did not agree, and government opposition in March 1823 stymied Wilberforce's call for abolition.^[178] On 15 May 1823, Buxton moved another resolution in Parliament for gradual emancipation.^[179] Subsequent debates followed on 16 March and 11 June 1824 in which Wilberforce made his last speeches in the House of Commons, and which again saw the emancipationists outmanoeuvred by the government.^[180][181]

Last years

Wilberforce's health was continuing to fail, and he suffered further illnesses in 1824 and 1825. With his family concerned that his life was endangered, he declined a peerage^[b] and resigned his seat in Parliament, leaving the campaign to others.^[141][183]

Wilberforce was buried in Westminster Abbey next to Pitt. This memorial statue, by Samuel Joseph (1791–1850), was erected in 1840 in the north choir aisle.

In 1826, Wilberforce moved from his large house in Kensington Gore to Hendon Park, a more modest property in the countryside of Mill Hill, north of London,^[184][141] where he was joined by his son William and family. William had attempted a series of educational and career paths, and a venture into farming in 1830 led to huge losses, which his father repaid in full, despite offers from others to assist. This left Wilberforce with little income, and he was obliged to let his home and spend the rest of his life visiting family members and friends.^[185] He continued his support for the anti-slavery cause, including attending and chairing meetings of the Anti-Slavery Society.^[186] Wilberforce approved of the 1830 election victory of the more progressive Whigs, though he was concerned about the implications of their Reform Bill which proposed the redistribution of parliamentary seats towards newer towns and cities and an extension of the franchise.^[187]

In 1833, Wilberforce's health declined further and he suffered a severe attack of influenza from which he never fully recovered.^[1] He made a final anti-slavery speech in April 1833 at a public meeting in Maidstone, Kent.^[188] The following month, the Whig government introduced the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery, formally saluting Wilberforce in the process.^[189] On 26 July 1833, Wilberforce heard of government concessions that guaranteed the passing of the Bill for the Abolition of Slavery.^[190] The following day he grew much weaker, and he died early on the morning of 29 July at his cousin's house in Cadogan Place, London.^[191][192]

Funeral

Wilberforce had left instructions that he be buried with his sister and daughter at St Mary's Church, Stoke Newington, just north of London. However, the leading members of both Houses of Parliament urged that he be honoured with a burial in Westminster Abbey. The family agreed and, on 3 August 1833, Wilberforce was buried in the north transept, close to his friend William Pitt.^[193][194] The funeral was attended by many Members of Parliament, as well as by members of the public. The pallbearers included the Duke of Gloucester, the Lord Chancellor Henry Brougham, and the Speaker of the House of Commons Charles Manners-Sutton.^{[195][196][197]} While tributes were paid and Wilberforce was laid to rest, both Houses of Parliament suspended their business as a mark of respect.^[198]

Legacy

Five years after his death, sons Robert and Samuel Wilberforce published a five-volume biography about their father, and subsequently a collection of his letters in 1840. The biography was controversial in that the authors emphasised Wilberforce's role in the abolition movement and played down the important work of Thomas Clarkson. Clarkson wrote a book refuting their version of events, and the sons eventually made a half-hearted private apology to him and removed the offending passages in a revision of their biography.^{[199][200][201]} For more than a century, Wilberforce's role in the campaign dominated the historical record. Later historians have noted the warm and highly productive relationship between Clarkson and Wilberforce, and have termed it one of history's great partnerships: without both the parliamentary leadership supplied by Wilberforce and the research and public mobilisation organised by Clarkson, abolition could not have been achieved.^{[62][202][203]}

As his sons had desired and planned, Wilberforce has long been viewed as a Christian hero, a statesman-saint held up as a role model for putting his faith into action.^{[1][204][205]} Contemporary evangelical and conservative movements in North America appropriate his name and example in their activism.^{[206][207][208]} The strategies of Wilberforce and other abolitionists are invoked by anti-abortion activists, who controversially equate the abolition of slavery with ending abortion.^{[209][210][211][208]}

Wilberforce has also been described as a humanitarian reformer who contributed to reshaping the political and social attitudes of the time by promoting concepts of social responsibility and action.^[126] In the 1940s, the role of Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect in abolition was downplayed by historian Eric Williams, who argued that abolition was motivated not by humanitarianism but by economics, as the West Indian sugar industry was in decline.^[54][212] Williams's approach strongly influenced historians for much of the latter part of the 20th century. More recent historians have noted that the sugar industry was still making large profits at the time of the abolition of the slave trade, and this has led to a renewed interest in Wilberforce and the evangelicals, as well as a recognition of the anti-slavery movement as a prototype for subsequent humanitarian campaigns.^[54][213]

Memorials

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The Wilberforce Monument in the grounds of Hull College, Hull, erected in 1834

In 2019, St Clements University, which is registered in the Turks & Caicos Islands (British West Indies), founded the William Wilberforce Centre for Law and Religion.^[214]

Wilberforce's life and work have been commemorated in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. In Westminster Abbey, a seated statue of Wilberforce by Samuel Joseph was erected in 1840, bearing an epitaph praising his Christian character and his long labour to abolish the slave trade and slavery.^[215]

In Wilberforce's hometown of Hull, a public subscription in 1834 funded the Wilberforce Monument, a 31-metre (102 ft) Greek Doric column topped by a statue of Wilberforce, which stands in the grounds of Hull College near Queen's Gardens.^[216] Wilberforce Memorial School for the Blind in York was established in 1833 in his honour.^[217] Wilberforce's birthplace was acquired by the city corporation in 1903 and, following renovation, Wilberforce House in Hull was opened as Britain's first slavery museum.^[218] In 2006, the University of Hull established the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation in a building beside Wilberforce House.^[219][220]

Various churches within the Anglican Communion commemorate Wilberforce in their liturgical calendars,^[221] and Wilberforce University in Ohio, United States, founded in 1856, is named after him. The university was the first owned by African-American people, and is an historically black college.^[222][223] In Ontario, Canada, the Wilberforce Colony was founded by black reformers, and inhabited by freed slaves from the United States.^[224]

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