William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce was born in 1759 in Hull, East Yorkshire. He graduated from Cambridge University with the intention of following a political career, and became Member of Parliament (MP) for Hull in 1780, aged 21. Four years later he became MP for the whole of Yorkshire. It was at this time that he began to work for the abolition of the British trade in enslaved people.
Wilberforce was a deeply spiritual man and later became an Evangelical Christian. He was a popular figure and was known to be charming and witty and a great public speaker. He campaigned for a number of causes: for legislation to improve the lives of the poor, education reform, prison reforms and ending child labour. He was also one of the founders of the Royal Society of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA).
A Committed Abolitionist
With the backing of his friend William Pitt, who became Prime Minister, Wilberforce became leader of The Society for the Abolition of Slavery. The society campaigned for almost 20 years to bring an end to British involvement in the Transatlantic Slave Trade. The abolition campaign made them many enemies, especially among those who had made huge profits from the trade in enlsaved African people.
Wilberforce left Hull in 1792 and moved to Clapham, London to be closer to his work in Westminster. Within the local community he found friends who shared his interests in religion and politics. They became known as the Clapham Sect and they actively supported the anti-slavery abolitionists.
William Wilberforce, oil painting by Karl Anton Hickel, 1793 . Willima has a white scarf tied at his neck and wearing a dark blue coat with a folded collar.
William Wilberforce by Karl Anton Hickel, 1793
Wilberforce married Barbara Spooner in 1797 and they had six children. Historical acounts show that he was a loving and devoted husband and father, and was proud that three of his sons became clergyman.
The Slavery Abolition Bill
Wilberforce attempted several times to bring private members' bills before Parliament to end Britain’s involvement in the slave trade, but the Bill was defeated many times. It was finally passed on 25 March, 1807. However, this only went as far as banning British people from engaging in the slave trade, it did not ban slavery itself. Wilberforce retired from politics in 1825 due to ill health, but he continued to campaign for the abolition of slavery.
Finally, on 26 July 1833, as Wilberforce lay on his deathbed, he was told that the Slavery Abolition Bill, granting freedom to all enslaved people within the British Empire, had been passed by Parliament. He died three days later. As a mark of respect for his achievements, his body was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Childhood and Education
William Wilberforce was born on 24 August, 1759, at 25 High Street, Hull (which is now known as Wilberforce House) to Robert and Elizabeth Wilberforce. He had three sisters, Elizabeth, Ann and Sarah (known as Sally). Of the four children, only William and Sally survived to adulthood.
The Wilberforce family were successful merchants, who traded in imported goods, like wood and cloth, from northern Europe and the Baltic states. The family home reflected the family's wealth and was decorated with fashionable architecture of the day.
William was a small, sickly child with poor eyesight, but this did not stop him from attending Hull Grammar School or taking part in musical activities or sports. William was known to have a beautiful singing voice and had a reputation for telling funny stories and playing practical jokes.
When William was only eight years old, his father died. William's mother then became ill and so she sent him to live with his aunt and uncle, Hannah and William Wilberforce, in London. They sent him to study at a small boarding school in Putney, which he disliked, complaining about the food. Hannah and William were Evangelical Methodists and they took William to church regularly, where he enjoyed listening to bible stories and sermons by prominent figures within the Methodist movement.
William's mother worried about his exposure to such a strong religious influence and arranged for him to come home to Hull. William was sent to board at Pocklington Grammar School, where he studied hard and did well at Latin, English and History. Aged 17 he went to Cambridge University, where he met William Pitt the Younger, who became a lifelong friend. Wilberforce took full advantage of the social life on offer at university, and was well known for attending dinners, gambling, and playing cards. Despite his busy social life, Wilberforce managed to graduate from Cambridge in 1781, determined to have a career as a Member of Parliament.
Religious Beliefs and Influences
William Wilberforce became a deeply religious man who dedicated his life and his work to acting on his beliefs. He had many religious and political influences during his lifetime.
His mother was staunchly Church of England. However, after the death of his father, William spent two years living with his aunt and uncle in London, who were keen Methodists.
They took the young William to church regularly, where he heard important figures like George Whitefield preach. At that time, Methodism was known as a branch within the Church of England that was particularly concerned with social welfare. However, his mother became alarmed at his growing interest in evangelical Christianity, and she brought the young William home again.
Wilberforce's second major religious influence was Isaac Milner, who was a young teacher when Wilberforce attended Hull Grammar School. They were to become lifelong friends and in 1784 they travelled together through Europe.
During the months they spent together, Milner introduced William to his own religious beliefs and encouraged him to read an essay entitled 'The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul'. The whole experience had a profound affect on William and he returned home to England a changed man and devout Methodist.
Another influence on William was John Newton, his Aunt Hannah’s half-brother who had previously been involved in the slave trade. Newton was one of the wealthiest men in Europe and a great humanitarian and philanthropist, and gave many gifts to the Evangelical church. Following William's tour of Europe with Milner, he met up with John Newton to discuss his new-found faith.
William wrote in secret to Newton:
Sir, there is no need of apology for intruding on you, when the errand is religion. I wish to have some serious conversation with you… the earlier the more agreeable to me. I have ten thousand doubts within myself, whether or not I should discover myself to you; but every argument against doing it has its foundation in pride. I am sure you will hold yourself bound to let no one living know of this application, or of my visit, till I release you for the obligation…
P.S. Remember that I must be secret, and that the gallery of the House is now so universally attended, that the face of a member of Parliament is pretty well known.
William stuck with his conversion to Methodism and wrote a best-selling book A Practical View of Christianity thirteen years later.
Early Political Life and Influences
After graduating from Cambridge University, William Wilberforce chose to follow a career in politics and stood as Independent candidate, in an election for Hull's Member of Parliament. He won by an overwhelming majority and was elected to represent the citizens of Hull, at the age of just 21.
The young Wilberforce was a natural politician. Following the deaths of his father and his uncle he had inherited enough money to financially support his political career. He was also well liked among Hull's merchant families, who hoped that he would represent their business interests in parliament.
Two of Wilberforce's most appealing qualities were his engaging personality and his eloquent speaking voice - useful traits for a politician. He was so famous for his public speaking that he was nicknamed the 'Nightingale of the Commons'.
On taking up his seat in the House of Commons, Wilberforce met up with his university friend, William Pitt the Younger, who had also chosen a political career. Pitt and Wilberforce spent much time studying the more experienced Members of Parliament from the Commons gallery, and listening to heated political debates of the day.
Pitt enjoyed a very sucessful political career, becoming Prime Minister and the new Tory party leader in 1783, aged just 24. Although not quite as ambitious as Pitt, Wilberforce took the decision to stand as candidate for Member of Parliament for Yorkshire. This was one of only two county seats and on winning it, Wilberforce became a more influential politician.
Following his conversion to Methodism in 1785, Wilberforce considered leaving politics. Yet, Pitt and John Newton convinced him to persevere and use his political work as a way of serving God. Wilberforce saw the campaign to abolish the Transatlantic Slave Trade as a way of following his religious and humanitarian beliefs, as well as his moral conscience.
the quiet power of ordinary devotions
As Christians, we are not interested in merely reading our Bibles. We want to be moved, inspired, changed by what we read. We do not wake up early simply to pass our eyes over the pages of Scripture. We come to meet God (1 Samuel 3:21). We come to taste honey and gather gold (Psalm 19:10). We come to “rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8). That means days of ordinary devotions, as we’ve all experienced, can be all the more disappointing. As any faithful Bible reader knows, many devotional times come and go without fireworks. We may get alone, ask for God’s help, read attentively, and then rise up feeling — normal. Our time in the living, active, inspired word of God has felt spectacularly ordinary. Sometimes, the ordinariness comes as a result of our lingering blindness to glory. I, for one, feel a kinship with those disciples on the Emmaus road, to whom Jesus said, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken” (Luke 24:25). God save us from foolish minds and slow hearts, which so often close our eyes to the light of his revelation. “The grace of God sometimes lands on us like lighting, and sometimes falls like dew.” Yet the cause does not always lie in us. If we are reading our Bibles rightly, in fact, we should expect many mornings of ordinary devotions: devotions that do not sparkle with insight or direct-to-life application, but that nevertheless do us good. Just as most meals are ordinary, but still nourish, and just as most conversations with friends are ordinary, but still deepen affection, so most devotions are ordinary, but still grow us in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ. Saturated with Scripture As a new Christian in college, I carried in my pocket a packet of Scripture-memory cards from the Navigators. On one of the first cards, I found 2 Timothy 3:16: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” I believed Paul’s words readily, having felt firsthand the profit of books like John and Romans, Philippians and James. Scarcely did I realize then, however, that Paul would have thought first of passages quite different from these — passages from which I struggled then (and still do now) to find the same kind of encouragement. Consider, for example, some of the God-breathed, profitable Scripture Paul had in mind as he wrote 2 Timothy: Solomon’s discussion of wisdom in Proverbs 2:6 (2 Timothy 2:7) Isaiah’s prophecy of the cornerstone in Isaiah 28:16 (2 Timothy 2:19) The story of Korah’s rebellion in Numbers 16 (2 Timothy 2:19) The account of the Egyptian magicians in Exodus 7–9 (2 Timothy 3:8) Few of us would dip into these passages for immediate edification. Few of us would offer them as our first illustrations of God-breathed, profitable Scriptures. Many of us, after stumbling through such pages of God’s word, emerge on the other side feeling unchanged, uninspired — ordinary. We can strive to avoid such experiences, of course, by staying safely in those parts of Scripture where we have felt God’s breath most powerfully. And yet, if we want a soul not merely sprinkled but saturated with God’s words, our only option is to carry on a long, patient acquaintance with passages that seem obscure. With passages that, upon first, second, or even fifth reading, leave us feeling quite ordinary afterward, but that slowly reveal the scope of God’s glory and make us “wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). Devotions Without a Devotional Perhaps our impatience with days of ordinary devotions comes from the expectation that daily devotions  should be like devotionals . A devotional gathers perhaps a month’s or a year’s worth of daily readings, each designed to give a boost toward Godward thinking and living. And the best of them do so quite well. Daily devotionals have a place in the Christian life. (I would have to ditch Charles Spurgeon’s Morning and Evening  if I thought otherwise.) Yet we do well to remember that, in giving us Scripture, God did not intend to give us a typical daily devotional. If he had, the chronicler might have spared us his genealogies, Ezekiel might have skipped his extended temple vision, and the author of Hebrews might have left out Melchizedek. If a daily devotional is like a photo album, with each page offering a self-contained snapshot of glory, Scripture itself is like a mural, with each day’s reading comprising only a centimeter of the whole. Some days, we happen upon a centimeter bright with glory, perhaps Psalm 23 or Romans 8. Other days, a dark image appears before us, as when we read prophecies or stories of judgment. Still other days, we find a section that simply mystifies us, the kind that we would never find in a daily devotional. Over time, though, we begin to grasp a glory in this mural that a snapshot could never give: a swirl of brightness and darkness, clarity and obscurity that coalesces into a masterpiece. And on those days, we will not wish that we had stayed safely within the snapshots of glory. Grace Like Dew We can rarely judge the value of our daily devotions, then, by considering any day in itself. In fact, initial impressions can deceive. High-octane devotions do not always lead to spiritual growth, and ordinary devotions often yield more fruit than we expect. J.C. Ryle once preached, Do not think you are getting no good from the Bible, merely because you do not see that good day by day. The greatest effects are by no means those which make the most noise, and are the most easily observed. The greatest effects are often silent, quiet, and hard to detect at the time they are being produced. Think of the influence of the moon upon the earth, and of the air upon the human lungs. Remember how silently the dew falls, and how imperceptibly the grass grows. There may be far more doing than you think in your soul by your Bible-reading. “Ordinary devotions are not the enemy. Like the manna in the wilderness, they too are from God.” The grace of God sometimes lands on us like lighting, and sometimes falls like dew. During some devotions, God places us in the cleft of the rock and lets us catch the trailing edge of his glory as he passes by (Exodus 33:18–23). During others, he shrouds us in darkness so that we cannot see (Isaiah 50:10). Yet if we read patiently and faithfully, not trusting in our wisdom but crying out for God’s, then the grace of God, though perhaps hidden in the moment, will in due time reveal its silent working. Sometimes, then, we do well to ask of our morning devotions not “What were my feelings?” but “What, over time, are the effects?” Regardless of what I feel on any given morning, am I coming to treasure more of Christ’s multifaceted glories? Is God’s word making me a more holy husband, wife, brother, sister, friend? Am I growing in my readiness for every good work (2 Timothy 3:17)? Manna and Milk Ordinary devotions, of course, are not the ideal. We do not hope to come to our Bibles and walk away unmoved — or, worse, confused. We hope rather to “behold wondrous things out of your law” (Psalm 119:18) and walk away full of praise. And when this hope is deferred, it too can make the heart sick. Yet neither are ordinary devotions the enemy. Like the manna in the wilderness, they too are from God. They too nourish and sustain us, even if imperceptibly. If we will patiently, faithfully eat the food God provides, ordinary days will give way to the milk and honey we long to taste again. And in the meantime, how good it is for us to be thrown back on God, knowing more deeply than ever that if we are to see at all, he  must give us sight. How good to sing with the psalmist, “As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, till he has mercy upon us” (Psalm 123:2). In God’s good time, if we do not give up, the unfolding of his words will give light (Psalm 119:130).
