William Wilberforce was born in Hull in August 1759 and became Hull’s Member of Parliament in 1781, so at the age of 21. In those days such an appointment was secured by spending money and buying votes. Young William spent some £8000 (worth £1¾ million in today’s money!) to secure his seat. But a year later he underwent a Christian conversion experience after reading the book, "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul" by a leading 18th-century nonconformist called Philip Doddridge.

But this was not convenient to a man of his standing, because religious enthusiasm was regarded as a bit of a social faux-pas among polite society. And this challenged William Wilberforce and led him to question whether he should remain in public life at all. But he did, and increasingly his political views were informed by his faith and by a desire to promote Christian ethics in private and public life.

Wilberforce was pretty conservative in his views, and opposed to any radical change in a political & social order which he regarded as given by God. And so he focused on things like Sunday observance, and general social immorality that he believed could be solved through education. He founded the Church Missionary Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So a good guy looking for a good cause.

And 2 years later he found it. He met a group of activists opposed to the transatlantic slave trade, he embraced their views and over time became the leading English abolitionist, heading up the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade, which resulted in the Slave Trade Act 1807, the aim of which was to abolish the Atlantic trade in slaves within the British Empire, basically by introducing fines of up to £100 per enslaved person found on board ship, for those ship captains who didn´t comply.

But it didn´t completely work, it didn´t lead to abolition and it didn’t result in the freeing of those who were already enslaved. So Wilberforce stuck to his guns, continued the campaign in parliament for the complete abolition of slavery, resulting in the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, which finally did the trick, including emancipation, which was achieved by having the British government purchase the freedom of all slaves in the Empire, and outlawing any further practice of enslavement.

Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of the act through Parliament was assured, his job done.

PIcture above of William Wilberforce, taken from a picture by Anton Hickel - originally uploaded to en.wikipedia by Agendum (talk · contribs) on 4 November 2007, 14:53 under the file name William wilberforce.jpg.(+/−), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=4215189