of persuading Parliament to support his cause. He was seen by some members as a radical and Jacobin sympathiser which lead him to be distrusted among members of Parliament. The following year in April 1792 as a result of public pressure parliament passed a bill put forward by the Home secretary Lord Dundas which was aimed to abolish the trade gradually over a number of years which was a compromise between abolitionists and pro- slavery members. The compromise was however a well thought through deception which had the aim of appeasing the public whilst ensuring than complete abolition of slavery was delayed indefinitely. Despite slavery slipping down the agenda in the late 1790s as a result of the war with France it resurfaced again in 1805. After William Pitt’s death in 1806 Wilberforce worked closely with the administration of Lord Grenville who supported abolition and brought more abolitionists into the cabinet. While Lord Grenville led Wilberforce’s campaign for abolition in the House of Lords, his foreign secretary Charles Fox led the campaign in the Commons until his death in September 1806. In the general election of autumn 1806 the slave trade was a key issue among the electorate who had been in many cases converted to Wilberforce’s stance through his effective campaigning. This resulted in a huge number of new abolitionist MPs, which included many former military men who had seen and experienced slavery personally. Lord Grenville led the abolition Bill through the House of Lords where it passed comfortably. On the 23 February the Bill passed the Commons by 283 votes to 16 receiving Royal assent in March 1807. The success of Wilberforce’s abolition Bill in 1807 had worldwide consequences. The British parliament was the first major European country to abolish the trade and set the path for other European nations to follow suit. The Netherlands abolished the slave trade in 1814 and in 1818 the British government signed treaties with Spain and Portugal to abolish the trade. It therefore can be concluded that as the world’s dominant power Britain’s Abolition Bill marked the beginning of the end of centuries of slave trading across the Atlantic. Before Wilberforce, the anti-slavery groups in Britain had been minor and had no contacts with those high up in British society. Wilberforce, as a Cambridge graduate and close friend of Tory Prime minister William Pitt, was well placed to take the abolitionist’s campaign to another level. His persuading of Pitt to open an enquiry in the trade was crucial in causing public resentment towards the trade. His ability to form a strong relationship with the Whig administration of Lord Grenville allowed Wilberforce’s Bill to have support in both Houses of Parliament. But it was Wilberforce’s determination that drove Bill through parliament, making way for the total abolition of Slavery in the British Empire in 1833. It can therefore be said that the courage of Wilberforce to take up a cause that seemed at first unwinnable, presents him as a hero and champion of Liberty.
William Beddows
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