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SUMMARY:Saturday 26th July\, Holy Eucharist to remember William Wilberforc
 e
DTSTART:20250726T103000Z
DTEND:20250726T113000Z
DTSTAMP:20260526T012054Z
UID:12060982025-07-26 10:30:00+00:00achurchnearyou
CATEGORIES:
DESCRIPTION: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 day
 s such an appointment was secured by spending money and buying votes. Youn
 g William spent some £8000 (worth £1¾ million in today’s money!) to s
 ecure his seat. But a year later he underwent a Christian conversion exper
 ience after reading the book\, "The Rise and Progress of Religion in the S
 oul" by a leading 18th-century nonconformist called Philip Doddridge. \n\n
 But this was not convenient to a man of his standing\, because religious e
 nthusiasm was regarded as a bit of a social faux-pas among polite society.
  And this challenged William Wilberforce and led him to question whether h
 e should remain in public life at all. But he did\, and increasingly his p
 olitical views were informed by his faith and by a desire to promote Chris
 tian ethics in private and public life. \n\nWilberforce was pretty conserv
 ative in his views\, and opposed to any radical change in a political & so
 cial order which he regarded as given by God. And so he focused on things 
 like Sunday observance\, and general social immorality that he believed co
 uld be solved through education. He founded the Church Missionary Society 
 and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. So a good guy lo
 oking for a good cause. \n\nAnd 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 t
 he parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade\, which resulted
  in the Slave Trade Act 1807\, the aim of which was to abolish the Atlanti
 c trade in slaves within the British Empire\, basically by introducing fin
 es of up to £100 per enslaved person found on board ship\, for those ship
  captains who didn´t comply. \n\nBut it didn´t completely work\, it didn
 ´t lead to abolition and it didn’t result in the freeing of those who w
 ere already enslaved. So Wilberforce stuck to his guns\, continued the cam
 paign in parliament for the complete abolition of slavery\, resulting in t
 he Slavery Abolition Act of 1833\, which finally did the trick\, including
  emancipation\, which was achieved by having the British government purcha
 se the freedom of all slaves in the Empire\, and outlawing any further pra
 ctice of enslavement. \n\nWilberforce died just three days after hearing t
 hat the passage of the act through Parliament was assured\, his job done. 
 \n\n\nPIcture above of William Wilberforce\, taken from a picture by Anton
  Hickel - originally uploaded to en.wikipedia by Agendum (talk · contri
 bs) on 4 November 2007\, 14:53 under the file name William wilberforce.j
 pg.(+/−)\, Public Domain\, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?cur
 id=4215189
LOCATION:Salinas Anglican Congregation
URL:https://www.achurchnearyou.com/church/8488/service-and-events/events/1
 206098/
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