William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner - William Hague
William Wilberforce: The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Trade Campaigner - William Hague
Non-Fiction
Pages: 288
William Hague's first effort as an historian was a biography of William Pitt, so it should come as no surprise than his next outing concerns Pitt's lifelong friend, William Wilberforce. And there is no sophomore slump here - this is an excellent biography, worthy of its subject.
William Wilberforce has gone down in history as one of the greatest of Britain's parliamentarians, a feat all the more remarkable when one considers that he never in his life held high ministerial office and was to the end of his days an Independent, beholden to no party. He was hailed as one of the great orators of his time, compared to Demosthenes by no less than Edmund Burke himself, and served as an MP for 45 years.
But what Wilberforce is most known for is his role as the man who spearheaded the campaign for the abolition of slavery, tirelessly year on year debating, arguing, campaigning, agitating, petitioning, bringing motion after motion in the House of Commons. He was always a proponent of gradual abolition, believing that if the abolitionists pushed too hard too fast they would damage their own cause (something Wilberforce received criticism for, both at the time and in the years since) and he targeted first the slave trade alone - but these things generate a momentum of their own. Wilberforce in his later years may have retired from the fight, but the fight continued, inspired by his example and leadership. One finishes this book grateful above all else that Wilberforce lived to see the final death knell of slavery - just three days before his death he received the news that the Abolition of Slavery Bill had secured its passage through the Commons.
Perhaps abolition could have been achieved without Wilberforce, perhaps not. But it is a surprising quirk of history how often the right man appears at the right time, summoned into being by a conjunction of events that calls for just that personality, just that temperament, just that set of skills. Cometh the hour, cometh the man...
This entry was originally posted at http://denorios.dreamwidth.org/2026922.html. Please comment there using OpenID.