William Wilberforce by William Hague
The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner
With his previous book, William Pitt the Younger: A Biography, William Hague, former Leader of the Conservative Party, has shown himself to be far more competent with matters historical than with matters political and so it is no surprise that William Wilberforce is one of the most authoritative biographies available of the great abolitionist.
An Evangelical Abolitionist
The son of a rich Yorkshire merchant, William Wilberforce had became an independent MP by the age of twenty-one. Being a popular and rich young man with excellent prospects, Wilberforce enjoyed the highlife in London until he experienced an Evangelical Christian revelation at the age of twenty-six and decided to dedicate his life to more lofty enterprises. After his religious conversion, Wilberforce had two goals in life: the abolition of the slave trade and the improvement of Britain’s moral standards. He certainly lived to see one of these achieved.
Encouraged by his friend William Pitt the Younger, Wilberforce made an epic speech in the Commons calling for the abolition of the slave trade. Rather unsurprisingly, his initial attempts at securing abolition were unsuccessful but Wilberforce pursued his goal with vigour, introducing a motion for abolition during every session of Parliament and campaigning tirelessly to raise awareness of the plight of the slaves among the British upper classes.
Eventually, ill health forced Wilberforce to resign from Parliament but he kept up his campaign for abolition, a campaign which finally resulted in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire. Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the Act had been successfully passed.
While it is arguable that it was the declining profitability of the slave trade which ultimately triggered its abolition, the contribution made to the movement for abolition by William Wilberforce and his supporters cannot be underestimated.
A Political Biography
The life of William Wilberforce is an excellent story and Hague tells it extremely well. As well as providing vivid details of the campaign for abolition, Hague provides a very fair account of Wilberforce, a man who, for all his abolitionist verve, did not support basic workers rights or the votes for women movement. Although Wilberforce’s reforming was motivated by religious conviction, his religion was of a very conservative sort.
One slight criticism of William Wilberforce is that it is a decidedly political biography; Hague does not explore Wilberforce’s private life as much as could perhaps be desired. Wilberforce married late in life; he was thirty-seven when he met his future wife, nineteen year old Barbara Spooner, and the two married after knowing each other for only six weeks. Such haste seems contrary to Wilberforce’s previous character. Husband and wife were also of extremely different temperaments, William was gregarious, a life and soul of the party type, while Barbara was shy and withdrawn. It would have been interesting to know more of their history together and whether the marriage dynamic was a happy one.
However, such criticism is only slight since in all other aspects Hague has provided and excellently researched and informative biography of Wilberforce which more than adequately details all the aspects of his public life.
Only one issue is left for the reader to ponder: Who will be the next great “William” to receive the Hague treatment? Shatner perhaps?
William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner by William Hague
ISBN 978-0007228867, HarperPerennial, 2008, £9.99, pp 480
