Trivia

• At the age of 21 he became a member of parliament, making him the youngest person ever to be elected to the House of Commons.
  

Honours and Accolades

• 2000 - Named Greatest Ever Yorkshire man by BBC poll.
  

Bio

William Wilberforce was a politician and social reformer who was born in Hull on 24th August 1759.

He studied at Cambridge University where he began a lasting friendship with the future prime minister, William Pitt the Younger.

He decided on a career in politics and soon after leaving university at the age of twenty, he decided to become a candidate in the forthcoming parliamentary election in Hull. His opponent was Lord Rockingham, a rich and powerful member of the nobility, and Wilberforce had to spend nearly £9,000 to become elected. In 1780 he was elected as a member of parliament for Hull. In the House of Commons Wilberforce supported the Tory government led by William Pitt.

He became one of the leading English abolitionists, heading the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade.

When he presented his first bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791 it was easily defeated by 163 votes to 88.

However, Wilberforce refused to be beaten and in 1805 the House of Commons passed a bill that made it unlawful for any British subject to transport slaves, but the measure was blocked by the House of Lords.

In February 1806, Lord Grenville formed a Whig administration. Grenville and his Foreign Secretary, Charles Fox, were strong opponents of the slave trade. Fox and Wilberforce led the campaign in the House of Commons, whereas Grenville, had the task of persuading the House of Lords to accept the measure.

Greenville made a passionate speech where he argued that the trade was "contrary to the principles of justice, humanity and sound policy" and criticised fellow members for "not having abolished the trade long ago". When the vote was taken the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill was passed in the House of Lords by 41 votes to 20. In the House of Commons it was carried by 114 to 15 and it become law on 25th March, 1807.

In later years, he supported the campaign for complete abolition, which eventually led to the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833. This Act paved the way for the complete abolition of slavery in the British Empire.

Wilberforce also founded an association, and subsequently working alongside the Clapham Group, championed more than 60 reforms, one of them being the Royal Society for the Prevention of the Cruelty to Animals, more widely known today as the RSPCA.

Wilberforce retired from politics in 1825 and died on 29 July 1833, shortly after the act to free slaves in the British empire passed through the House of Commons. He was buried near his friend Pitt in Westminster Abbey.

Today, his full life story is told at the award winning Wilberforce House Museum in Hull.