Fighting for Justice

William Wilberforce was born into a rich merchant family in 1759. When his father died, young William spent two years with his aunt and uncle in London. His aunt embraced the emerging Methodist movement, which emphasized social reform, including the abolition of slavery and the slave trade. A frequent visitor to the London home was John Newton, a former slave-ship captain who became a Christian and wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace.”

When William went back home to Hull, his interest in Christianity faded. While at Cambridge University, he was elected to Parliament and began a lifelong friendship with William Pitt (the Younger), who became Prime Minister. 

A year after winning his first reelection to Parliament, Wilberforce became a Christian. He reconnected with Newton, who encouraged him to serve God in public life. Wilberforce began to use his position in Parliament to attack vices, such as drinking and gambling, that afflicted the poor. When antislavery activist Thomas Clarkson showed him the appalling conditions under which slaves were transported from Africa to the West Indies, Wilberforce became an abolitionist.

In 1791, Wilberforce introduced a bill to abolish the slave trade, but it was defeated because port cities depended on income generated by the slave trade. Year after year, Wilberforce reintroduced his bill only to watch it be defeated. After tabling his bill for a decade during Britain’s war with France, Wilberforce won approval for a clever anti-French law that gutted the revenues of many in the slave trade. 

By 1807, with the pro-slavery lobby low on funds and with public sentiment against slavery, both houses of Parliament passed Wilberforce’s bill—the Slave Trade Act, by large margins, ending nearly 400 years of slave trade in the British Empire. A year later, the United States passed its own law also banning the slave trade.[1]

The Lord worked righteousness and justice for the oppressed by inspiring an ordinary person, William Wilberforce, to act on his behalf.

Questions for Reflection and Application

• It took Wilberforce sixteen years to get Parliament to pass his bill to abolish slave trade. What inspires enough passion in you that you would persist for sixteen years to achieve your goal?
• Wilberforce lived out his Christian faith in his workplace. How do you do that? Where can you improve?
• Wilberforce was a crafty legislator who used anti-French sentiments to persuade Parliament to pass a law that weakened his opponents. Given that Jesus advised us to be “wise as serpents” (Matthew 10:16) when dealing with the world, how can you use your cleverness to gain ground for the kingdom?
     

[1] “William Wilberforce (biography)”, BBC website, updated 2011; “Who Was William Wilberforce?”.