29 July: Boreham on William Wilberforce

The Centenary of William Wilberforce
Exactly a hundred years ago today—on July 29, 1833—the most notable and most picturesque of civilisation's social reformers passed away. Some men are extraordinarily fortunate in the hour of their appearance: the stage seems set for them: the world appears to be breathlessly awaiting their advent. So was it with William Wilberforce. It is scarcely too much to say that when he was born the Empire was born. The two sprang into existence simultaneously. A few months before the birth of Wilberforce, Lord Clive, at the battle of Plassey, had presented England with a vast Asiatic dominion. While Wilberforce was still a baby in long clothes, General Wolfe, by his tragic but immortal victory on the Heights of Abraham, had wrested Canada from the French. In Wolfe’s army at Quebec, moreover, there was a young sailor—afterwards known to fame as Captain Cook—who was already dreaming of setting out in search of new Britains beneath the Southern Cross. It was an age of thrills. "Never," says Green, in his "Short History of the English People," "never had England played so great a part in the history of mankind as in the year 1759"—the year in which Wilberforce was born. "It was a year of triumphs in every quarter of the world. In September came the news of Minden and of a victory off Lagos. In October came tidings of the capture of Quebec. November brought word of the French defeat at Quiberon." Such sensational developments led Horace Walpole to exclaim that he was forced to ask every morning what fresh victory there was for fear of missing one. Thackeray says that during those memorable months every Englishman was drunk with the intoxication of exciting news. In one crowded and epoch-making year, the civilisations alike of the East and of the West were entirely recast and remodelled. It was as if the world were being made all over again. Such was the tornado of military conquest and international reconstruction that raged about the cradle of the future abolitionist!

The child was scarcely out of that cradle, however, before it was realised that he was not as other children are. Weak and puny from his birth, his parents were horrified at the discovery that his frame was stunted and misshapen. For it is one of the marvels of history that the hand that struck the shackles from the galled limbs of our British slaves was the hand of a hunchback. One of the triumphs of statuary in Westminster Abbey is the seated figure that, while faithfully perpetuating the noble face and fine features of Wilberforce, skilfully conceals his frightful physical deformities. From infancy he was an elfish, unsightly little figure. At the Grammar School at Hull the other boys would lift his tiny, twisted form on to the table and make him go through all his impish tricks.

For, though so pitifully twisted and distorted, he was amazingly sprightly, resourceful and clever. A master of mimicry, a born actor, an accomplished singer and a perfect elocutionist, he was as agile also as a monkey and as full of mischief. Every day his genius enlivened his quaint performance by the startling introduction of some fresh antics. His schoolfellows and his teachers were invariably convulsed by the whimsical audacity of each new turn. He is the most striking illustration that history can offer of a grotesque and insignificant form glorified by its consecration to an illustrious and noble cause. Recognising the terrible handicap that Nature had so harshly imposed upon him, he set himself to counter-balance matters by acquiring a singular graciousness and charm of manner. Bacon once affirmed that "he that hath, fixed upon his person, some quality that exposes him to derision, is under an imperative obligation to develop such beauty of mind and loftiness of character as shall lift him beyond the range of contempt." Bacon's axiom has never been more finely illustrated than in the case of William Wilberforce. He set himself to redeem his dwarfish proportions from ignominy, and he succeeded so brilliantly that his grace and courtliness became proverbial. It was said of him that, if you saw him in conversation with a man, you would suppose that the man was his brother, or, if with a woman, that he was her lover. He compelled men to forget his unshapely appearance: the splendour of his intellect eclipsed the ugliness of his body.

This extraordinary effect was doubtless produced in large measure by the purity of the cause that he espoused. On the occasion of the centenary it is pleasant to recall that memorable day on which the two friends—Wilberforce and Pitt—lay sprawling on the grass under a grand old oak tree in the beautiful park at Holwood in Kent. A solid stone seat now stands beside the tree, bearing an inscription commemorative of the historic occasion. For it was then—and there—that Wilberforce solemnly devoted his life to the emancipation of the slaves. He had introduced the subject with some diffidence; was delighted at Pitt's evident sympathy; and, springing to his feet, he declared that he would set to work at once to abolish the iniquitous traffic. Few of us nowadays realise the immense proportions that the British slave trade had then assumed. During the eighteenth century, nearly a million blacks were transported from Africa, with much less consideration than would have been shown to cattle, to Jamaica alone. From his earliest infancy, the horror of the traffic preyed upon the sensitive mind of William Wilberforce. When quite a boy he wrote to the papers protesting against "this odious traffic in human flesh." In the twenties, he embraced the cause as distinctively his own and made the extinction of slavery the supreme purpose of his life. For fifty years he never rested. Through evil report and through good, he tirelessly pursued his ideal. At times the opposition seemed insuperable. But Pitt stood by him, the Quakers and a few others encouraged him to persist: John Wesley, in his last hours of consciousness, wrote from his deathbed begging the reformer never to give up. After twenty years of incessant struggle, it was enacted that the exportation of slaves from Africa should cease; but no relief was offered to those already in bondage. A quarter of a century later, as Wilberforce lay dying, messengers from Westminster entered his sickroom to tell him that, at last, the Emancipation Bill had been passed; the slaves were free! "Thank God," exclaimed the expiring dwarf, "that I have lived to see this day!" Like Wolfe at Quebec, like Nelson at Trafalgar, like John Franklin in the North-West Passage, he died in the flush of triumph. His vivid fancy had involved him in all the tortures that oppressed the slaves; but he passed away rejoicing that their fetters were all broken and gone.

The record of William Wilberforce presents us with the paramount example of a man, terribly handicapped, who, fighting against terrific odds, bears down all opposition by the sheer force of his own unselfish passion. His transparent earnestness transfigured him. When he rose to address the House of Commons, he looked like the dwarf that had jumped out of a fairy-tale: when he resumed his seat he looked like the giant of the self-same story. His form, as “The Times” said, was like the letter S; it resembled a stick that could never be straightened. Yet his hearers declared that his face, when pleading for the slave, was positively seraphic; it resembled the face of an angel. The repulsiveness of his little frame seemed to disappear; and, under the magic of his inspired eloquence, his form became sublime.

When, just a century ago, he passed away, such a funeral procession made its way to Westminster Abbey as even London had rarely witnessed. He was borne to his last resting-place by the Peers and Commoners of England with the Lord Chancellor at their head. In imperishable marble it was recorded of him that “he had removed from England the guilt of the slave-trade and prepared the way for the abolition of slavery in every colony in the Empire.” If that epitaph were recast in the perspective of history, it would be made to read that Wilberforce pioneered the emancipation of all slaves, not only throughout the Empire, but throughout the world. But the people of that day could not anticipate the American movement. They only knew that a man had passed who had served his country and his generation with sublime devotion and with dramatic effect. And it is said that, as the cortege made its sombre way through the crowded streets, all London was in tears, and one person in every three was garbed in deepest black.

F W Boreham

Image: William Wilberforce