biography
| name: |
Wilberforce, William
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1759–1833)
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| biography:
| British politician, evangelist, and philanthropist, born in Hull, NE England, UK. He studied at Cambridge, became an MP (1780), and in 1788 began the movement which resulted in the abolition of the slave trade in the British West Indies in 1807. He next sought to secure the abolition of all slaves, but declining health compelled him in 1825 to retire from parliament. He died in London, one month before the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act. He was a lifelong friend of the Younger Pitt, and he supported Pitt's attacks in the 1790s on those radical political reformers who drew their inspiration from the French Revolution and Thomas Paine, though he remained a political independent. His evangelical beliefs led him to urge the aristocracy to practise ‘real Christianity’, and to give a moral lead to the poor, and he promoted many schemes for the welfare of the community. |
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