William Wilberforce 

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William Wilberforce was a British politician, a philanthropist and a leader of the movement to abolish slave trade. He is a native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire. He began is political career in 1780 and became the independent Member of the Parliament for Yorkshire. In 1785 he converted and became an evangelical Christian. This resulted in major changes in his lifestyle and a lifelong concern for reform. In 1787 he met Thomas Clarkson and a group of anti-slave-trade activists, including Granville Sharp, Hannah More and Charles Middleton. They persuaded Wilberforce to take on the cause of abolition, and he soon became one of the leading English abolitionists. He headed the parliamentary campaign against the British slave trade for twenty-six years until the passage of the Slave Trade Act 1807.
Wilberforce convinced himself of the importance of religion, morality, and education. He championed causes and campaigns such as the Society for Suppression of Vice, British missionary work in India, the creation of a free colony in Sierra Leone, the foundation of the Church Mission Society and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. His underlying conservatism led him to support politically and socially repressive legislation, and resulted in criticism that he was ignoring injustices at home while campaigning for the enslaved abroad.

Wilberforce was deeply conservative when it came to challenges to the existing political and social order. He advocated change in society through Christianity and improvement in morals, education and religion, fearing and opposing radical causes and revolution. The radical writer William Cobbett was among those who attacked what they saw as Wilberforce's hypocrisy in campaigning for better working conditions for slaves while British workers lived in terrible conditions at home.
Wilberforce was generous with his time and money, believing that those with wealth had a duty to give a significant portion of their income to the needy. He paid off the debts of others, supported education and missions, and in a year of food shortages gave to charity more than his own yearly income.

In later years, Wilberforce supported the campaign for the complete abolition of slavery, and continued his involvement after 1826, when he resigned from Parliament because of his health conditions. The campaign led to the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, which abolished slavery in most of the British Empire; Wilberforce died just three days after hearing that the passage of the Act through Parliament was assured. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, close to his friend William Pitt.

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